From October 26 to November1, J&K government has announced to celebrate Vigilance Awareness Week as is happening across the country. The focus areas of the celebrations is to bring greater awareness on complaints under Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Informers and conducting Special Clearance Campaign for clearing all outstanding vigilance matters.
The government says a detailed programme of events has been planned by the Central Vigilance Commission, New Delhi, which amongst other things includes taking of an integrity pledge, sensitizing employees and public about corruption and allied issues through workshops and dissemination of information etc.
The Chief Secretary will administer an integrity pledge to all Administrative Secretaries and officers of various Departments at 11:00 a.m. on October 27. The steps are welcome. It will basically raise awareness regarding corruption which unfortunately continues to pervade virtually every sphere of life, notwithstanding promises made from time to time to eradicate the menace. Beyond doubt, corruption eats into the innards of a nation and is a debilitating social cancer which spares no one. There are numerous reasons, some of them well documented, as to why corruption flourishes. However, failure by some key institutions particularly the police and judiciary to bring to a close case plays an important part.
As per recent information from the Court of Special Judge, Anti-corruption, Jammu, there are FIRs starting from 1998 onwards under the Prevention of Corruption Act, where challans have not been presented till date. The allegations are of forgery, bribery, misuse of government money, fictitious withdrawals from the treasury, embezzlement of government money, disbursement of loans without proper documents, allotment of works without tendering process, possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income, fabrication or fictitious bills for the purchases, etc. The allegations of corruption there are allegations under provisions of penal code also in most of the FIRs.
Many of the accused named in the FIRs are government officials. They may be either under suspension or may be getting all benefits despite pendency of criminal cases against them.
There are timelines provided in legislations for the presentation of the charge sheet, otherwise, an accused is entitled to default bail. Any delay by the Investigating Agency in not completing investigation of the cases registered is seriously impacting the justice delivery system as the guilty are not being brought to court for trial even after decades of registration of cases against them, thus observed the J&K’s top court.
While reasons for the delay could be plenty, the government should ensure the monitoring system for investigations in the FIRs.
