Has Decided To Record Every Case On Camera From The Time A Complaint Is Registered Till The Recreation Of The Trap By Its Staff
Mumbai : With an aim to making its cases tamper-proof and subsequently give it higher conviction rates, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has decided to record every case on camera from the time a complaint is registered till the recreation of the trap by the staff of ACB.
“With immediate effect, we want to implement a digitised evidence presentation where in the first stage, a complainant will register his complaint on camera, then the briefing and planning of the plan will be recorded, the trap will be recorded on audio and later the scene of the trap will be recreated for the purpose of fool-proof evidence,” said the Director General of ACB Maharashtra, Praveen Dixit.
Besides the video recording serving as solid proof, an E-chargesheet will also be submitted in court. “We will give copies of the E-chargsheet to the judge, the complainant, the accused, the accused’s advocate and all other relevant parties. As much work as possible will be converted into the electronic medium,” Dixit added.
It has been found by the ACB that sometimes complainants go back on their complaints and refuse to go ahead with the case. Testimonies recorded on video would give ACB the leverage to act against corrupt government officials under any circumstances. In addition, this would also strengthen the prosecution’s case and minimise the chances of losing it as no one can negate something recorded on video.ACB’s work against corruption this year too is continuing on an upward graph where it has carried out 38 traps in Maharashtra and booked 47 accused persons in the first nine days of 2015, as compared to January 2014 where the number of traps in the whole month itself were 32 with 38 people having been booked. According to statistics available with the ACB, there has been a 19 per cent increase in the number of cases in this year as compared to January, 2014.
In addition, the number of cases pending for prosecution sanctions from competent government authorities also went down from 466 cases until November 21 in 2014 (as reported in the FPJ on November 24 2014, ‘CM Cracks Whip On Corruption’), to 402 cases until January 9, 2015. “After we discussed the matter of pending sanctions for prosecution from competent authorities with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, there has definitely been an improvement and a lot of sanctions have come indeed. However, there is still a long way to go and a lot of improvement needs to be done,” Dixit said.
As compared to November 21 last year when the Revenue department topped the list with pending sanctions for 137 cases, it has brought its backlog until January 9, down to 93 cases and come on the second place. Whereas the Home department, which was then at the second place with 113 cases has gone up to the first place with 102 cases still waiting for prosecution sanctions.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Vasant Devarkar, ACB Mumbai said that often the sanction letters are found to have minor mistakes because of which they are sent back to be reissued, which causes a delay of four to five days at ever instance. “Besides that we are witnessing a positive trend in the issue of sanctions for prosecution,” he said.
Sindhu J Mansukhani
