Kick-starting its plan to “name and shame” the people allegedly involved in corrupt deals, the Naveen Patnaik government on Monday posted online a list of persons facing graft cases.
Journalist Chandrabhanu Patnaik, the editor of a local television channel against whom a vigilance case was lodged in January 2009, features in the list put up on the state vigilance department’s website.
Orissa has become the first state to make public the names of people, government officials and others, facing corruption cases, vigilance department chief Surendra Panwar said.
The list has been further divided into Agreed List and Suspect List — like the Central Vigilance Commission, which had posted online a list of corrupt persons about two and a half years ago.
The Agreed List has 351 names and Suspect List 368, in all covering 14 government departments.
Those on the list include a member of Orissa Arbitration Tribunal, a former director of mines, contractor B Prabhakaran, miner Diptiranjan Patnaik, treasury officers, accounts officers, traffic inspectors, motor vehicle inspectors, regional transport officers, and even several clerks.
“Persons enlisted in the Suspect List and Agreed List would be closely watched by both the Vigilance and their departments and their postings would be regulated and monitored. But promotion and posting for the officers in the Suspect List are restricted,” Panwar said.
To identify the alleged corrupt officers, the Vigilance sleuths have dug up information regarding the cases they have faced, been chargeheeted in, and tried for over the last 20 years, Panwar added.
The move to publish the names, however, has not impressed corruption watchdog Transparency International India. “Since the names of officers who were supposed to be monitored is out in the open... thereby taking out the surprise value,” said Biswajit Mohanty, board member
of Transparency International India. He alleged that despite specific complaints to the chief minister about lack of sanction to prosecute seven Orissa cadre IAS officers for alleged corruption, the state government has refused to give sanction in case of two of them — S N Tripathy and Injeti Srinivas.
Some cases are pending for more than five years and the accused officers continue to enjoy prized postings in critical government departments with budgets of more than Rs 2,000 crores, Mohanty alleged. “The CM is protecting senior IAS officers accused of corruption by failing to accord sanction within the mandatory two months period as per guidelines issued by the General Administration Department,” he alleged.
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