JOIN USWhen it comes to action against the corrupt, state government continues to protect its officials.
The state government has not suspended government servants, in cases of raid and trap, even after repeated reminders by the ACB.
Sources said that at least 14 officials in cases registered in Bengaluru alone have not been suspended.
According to sources, most of these pending suspension orders are with senior IAS officers, who are the competent authorities. These cases were registered since 2016 and reminders sent by the ACB have not been acted upon.
Most of these pending cases are about disproportionate assets. "Some officials are merely transferred from the post they were at the time of the raid, some are continuing on the same post. The case of a trap is against a special land acquisition officer with the Bangalore Development Authority," an official said.
The officials who have managed to escape the suspension include– T R Shivaramu, executive engineer, Public Works Department (raid); H Nagesh, director KPTCL (raid); M C Shashikumar, joint director of directorate of town and country planning (raid); R V Kantharaju, deputy director of town planning authority BDA and K T Halaswamy, deputy commissioner, transport department (raid).
"Some time ago, a circular was issued by the chief secretary that officials facing charges of corruption should be placed under suspension for three months. Presently, two of the requests are pending before the chief secretary, while other competent authorities include additional chief secretaries, commissioners of BDA and BBMP and a few secretaries," the official said.
When contacted, Chief Secretary K Ratna Prabha denied any proposals pending before her .
After reminders sent repeatedly, certain officials were just transferred. One such example is in the case of Halaswamy. He was joint commissioner Bengaluru Rural with additional charge as senior RTO of K R Puram at the time of the raid. After repeated communications sent to the principal secretary transport department, he was transferred as managing director of Devaraj Urs Truck Terminal and after some time he was also given additional charge of deputy transport commissioner RTO Rajajinagar.