Umair Haqani
The government had frequently made claims that it will try to fight corruption and weed it out from the society. The corruption in the government offices and its working was so widespread that Jammu and Kashmir got the horrible distinction of figuring among the most corrupt states in India. The chief minister Omar Abdullah has tried to build a clean image for himself and consistently made statements about weeding out the corruption from the state, which drastically affects the state’s development and impacts people’s welfare.
The chief minister, breaking a precedent, filed a defamation case against People’s Democratic Party legislator Nizam-u-din Bhat and PDP spokesman Naeem Akhtar for making allegation of receiving kickbacks to the tune of Rs 500 crore in the Sawalakote hydel power project. The legislator Nizam-u-din Bhat later apologized to the chief minister in the state assembly saying that the information on the basis of which he had made the allegation was wrong. Omar withdrew the defamation case against Bhat but vowed to continue the case against spokesman Akhtar, at least until, he comes up with an apology.
Politicians taking charges of graft seriously are apparently a good omen and a good step towards bringing the down the levels of corruption in the state. The state government has declared 2011 as “anti-corruption year”. However, the other signals coming from the government are not that encouraging. The government said that the 449 gazetted officers in the state were facing corruption cases.
The State Vigilance Organisation, which is the main government agency entrusted with the job of checking corruption is investigating many more cases. In the case of 64 officers the vigilance organization claims to have proved cases of misappropriation of funds and other irregularities against these officers which include two IAS, three IFtS, three KAS officers, 15 Block Development Officers (BDOs), and six engineers. The vigilance organization could not prosecute them as they are awaiting sanction from the state’s General Administration Department. A number of tainted government officials have retired even as the vigilance organization kept waiting for sanction to prosecute them. Newspapers reported that prosecution sanction against some of the officers has been pending for months.
In addition to 64 officers, the vigilance organization and the Crime Branch have booked a number of government officers. The PDP MLA and former minister Moulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari is the lone politician to be booked for financial irregularities.
Some of the officers against whom the vigilance organization is seeking sanction are enjoying plum postings. No sane person will demand to punish the accused officers until proven guilty, but if a government organization is claiming that they have enough proof of misappropriation of funds or embezzlement or graft against a said officer the government should take an action and remove them from postings where they could continue to indulge in malpractices. It is the least the government could do apart from sanctioning their prosecution without any delay. It is not the job of an officer sitting in the GAD to prejudge the case against an officer, which the vigilance department says, has proved to be indulged in wrong practices. It sounds funny and unjust.
