56% of complaints sent back to department for action by ACB

Reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of Maharashtra recorded 3,522 complaints of corruption last year.  Out of these, the ACB forwarded 1,973 (56%) to the concerned departments for inquiry. The ACB did not conduct any investigation of its own because of manpower shortage and because many complaints were vague or not credible. It is yet to receive a response from a department on any of these complaints.

In 1972, the state government had issued a circular which restrained the ACB from probing government employees without first referring the complaint for a departmental inquiry to the head of the concerned department. The circular was in existence till the early part of this century when the Bombay high court quashed it. However, the practise continues as exemplified from the figures for Mumbai, where the ACB redirected nearly 77% of the 1,618 complaints received by it. The practice of the Anti-Corruption Bureau's (ACB) to refer the cases to the very departments against whose officials the complaints were made has been criticised by many social activists. The ability of the department to conduct an enquiry is limited as they neither have powers to conduct raids or searches nor can question a private individual.