It is a year of successful traps for Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths, the only government agency that can come to the rescue of people in case of corruption by State government employees.
Statistics show that ACB sleuths improved their performance by 24.46% in registration of cases against employees amassing wealth illegally, be it arrest for accepting illegal gratification or cases of disproportionate assets. While they had booked 139 cases in 2018, the figure jumped to 173 this year this year (till December 27).
Numbers apart, the ACB led by its Director-General and senior IPS officer J. Purnachander Rao and his teams operating from the headquarters of undivided districts, achieved a record of sorts by busting the insurance medical services scam. Though the fraud came to light with registration of three cases and arrest of 21 persons, the investigation is still on.
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More skeletons are likely to tumble out of the cupboards of Director of Insurance Medical Services office in the new year. “Our probe is spread over nearly ₹1,000 crore spent by IMS office in the past four to five years. We cannot rule out further arrests,” said officers associated with the investigation of the case and unwilling to be named.
There was a spurt in the number of cases against employees of different ranks from the Revenue department. While 37 cases had been booked against them the previous year, 54 employees of the department were arrested on corruption charges this year. Among them was the case of one Tahsildar from whose house the authorities recovered ₹93.5 lakh. Interestingly, the Tahsildar had earlier been given ‘best employee’ award by the government.
Another curious case was that of an engineer from Transco who was arrested for receiving bribe. An amount of ₹26.5 lakh was found during searches in his house. A government medical college’s head of department was arrested for allegedly accepting ₹70,000 to forward an application of a medical PG student seeking maternity leave!
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