By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : Orissa has failed to decide on requests by the vigilance department for sanction to prosecute as many as seven senior officers, anti-corruption group Transparency International said here Monday.
The group’s India chapter board member Biswajit Mohanty said the data he obtained from the government under the Right to Information act showed that requests were pending for long periods against six Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers and one Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer.
There is a time limit of two months to decide upon such requests for sanction. But in many of these cases the delays have been for years, he told IANS citing a government circular issued Aug 28, 1997 that mandates time-bound disposal.
“This (the delay) clearly shows how the government is sabotaging the efforts of its own anti-corruption wing to punish top officers accused of corruption,” he said.
The officers against whom sanction to prosecute was sought as on Dec 31, 2010 were P.C. Mishra, N.K. Sundaray, Vinod Kumar, I. Srinivas, P.K. Pradhan and S.N. Tripathy – all IAS officers.
Similarly prosecution was also pending against Abhiram Das, an Indian Forest service officer, he said.
Some of the requests have been pending since 2005, he added.
Mohanty has also written a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Monday demanding quick decision regarding sanction for prosecution and action against those officers who caused the delay.