Disproportionate Assets cases against corrupt public servants by ACB on decline

 

 

 

Disproportionate Assets (DA) cases which are used to initiate corruption probes on public servants by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) have been on steady decline in the past 10 years. As against 22 DA cases registered against corrupt Government officials in 2012, the number of DA cases has dwindled to seven in 2021 across the State. The declining rate of DA cases is 68 per cent in the past 10 years, according to the statistics of ACB Maharashtra with eight police units across the State. In contrast, cases of the bribe demand/acceptance have increased by 36 per cent in the past 10 years as 764 such cases are registered in 2021 as compared to 489 in 2012.

 

One expected DA cases to rise since there is a manifold rise in traps, but several matters play a subtle role that explains decline in DA cases. Senior police officers are worried about the trend and attributed the fall to not receiving proper complaints against Government officials with solid proof. They also find the new amendment in Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act) in 2018 as a new loophole for corrupt officials to hide their unaccounted sources of income. “The ACB needs complaints with solid proof and it’s almost impossible for a vigilant person to randomly get property details of any corrupt officer. This can happen only when a family person or an office colleague turns hostile and provides the information against the complainant,” the official said. “After the new amendment in the PC Act, the Government officials are not liable to provide a source of property to the competent authority.

 

They get an escape route by just filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) and these ITRs are manipulated by the corrupt officials by showing additional income as one earner by family members,” the official explained. Therefore, the cases do not stand in the court as they get the benefit of doubt, he added. Another senior official said that filing a DA case is a long process with a huge documentary process. To register a DA case, the ACB needs to show Disproportionate Assets of minimum 10 per cent as against the actual income of the official. The ACB has no power to register a case if Disproportionate Assets are under 10 per cent, the official said. The official also pointed out that slow speed of approvals to field units from head office provides enough time to tainted officials to cover-up their tracks and they often show the extra income with them as that of family members. The procedure is that after preparing details of the case, the file is moved for approval to senior officers who either sit at Mumbai and Pune. Often due to the huge volume of work the approvals get delayed. 

 

Parambir’s order was quashed by Rajnish Seth A top rank official said that Ex-DG ACB Parambir Singh had ordered a DA inquiry of every Government official trapped by the ACB. The order added tremendous work pressure on ACB. However, the number of DA cases did not increase in that strength. The order was subsequently quashed by Ex-DG ACB Rajnish Seth (Now DGP Maharashtra). The reasoning was in petty trap cases, it did not make sense to initiate DA as nothing substantial proof is going to be found. So most of the time the entire exercise was a futile waste of time and energy of ACB personnel. Already ACB is saddled with vacancies as police personnel are not that keen to work in the Bureau owing to work pressure.