Mira Bhayandar: A total of 22 personnel including ten officials attached to the various departments in the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) have landed into traps laid by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for demanding and accepting bribes in the past nineteen years.
This apart from a couple of elected representatives in the MBMC who have been charged for graft. While one official has been recently acquitted in a 14-year-old bribery case, investigations were still on the remaining cases even as the number of convictions stood at zero. The information was sourced out under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by social activist- Krishna Gupta.
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About The Tainted Personnel
Notably, most of the tainted personnel who are under the scanner of investigations have not only re-joined regular services after brief suspensions but have also managed to bag plump postings. Ironically, the reply to the RTI query has been given by an assistant commissioner who himself had landed into the custody of the ACB on alleged charges of accepting a bribe amounting to Rs 1.75 lakh from a hotelier in 2013.
“In addition to the 22 cases in which personnel have been caught red-handed while accepting bribes, the ACB had sought permission to probe nearly 27 complaints related to corruption and misappropriation of funds including the ambulance scam in the past five years. However, permissions were denied in all cases raising a serious question mark on the so-called zero tolerance to corruption adopted by the MBMC,” alleged Gupta.
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Prosecution Sanctions Obtained
The RTI reply also reveals that prosecution sanctions have been obtained from the competent authority in 21 cases, the proposal to procure one sanction remains pending. Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act makes it mandatory to obtain sanction for prosecution, as section 17(A) of the same act gives certain freedoms to public servants while discharging their duties.
Meanwhile, a cursory glance at the statistical records uploaded on ACB’s official website reveals that a total of 545 traps have been registered across the state between 1, January to 14, October 2024 as compared to 661 cases in the corresponding period last year which indicates an 18 percent drop in the number of cases.