Rajahmundry: Delay in ACB court irks staff

Rajahmundry: Inordinate delay in setting up the ACB special court in Rajahmundry is causing trouble to the ACB officials and the accused officials from other departments trapped by the ACB sleuths. The government issued a GO to set up an AB special court in Rajahmundry way back in December, 2016 but the order failed to be implemented in the last six months. At present an ACB special court exists in Vijayawada catering to the needs of ACB authorities located in Guntur, Krishna, West Godavari and East Godavari districts.

Whenever the ACB authorities trap a government official on charges of graft and also due to possession of disproportionate assets, the accused are being produced in the ACB special court in Vijayawada. In case an official is trapped red-handed for graft and a case is registered in Rajahmundry, the ACB authorities have to produce the official in ACB special court in Vijayawada only. It takes nearly four to five hours journey to reach Vijayawada from Rajahmundry. As the ACB special court magistrate orders judicial remand to the accused, again the accused has to be brought back to Rajahmundry, to be sent to the Central Jail located here.

ACB officials from Godavari districts will be regularly visiting ACB special court in Vijayawada either to produce the accused officials or to attend court hearings during the trail of cases or to attend daily court proceedings. This causes more burden upon the ACB officials to engage in such activities instead of concentrating on finding out more cases of graft among the officials and take them to task.

On an average, 15 cases are being registered each in both East and West Godavari districts per annum. More number of cases of graft are being registered from revenue and police departments. Officials from the rank of village revenue officer and above in revenue department and head constable/sub inspector and above in police department and also officials from registration department and others are also being booked by the ACB authorities.

A senior ACB official said, “It will be good to set up a separate ACB special court in Rajahmundry early as it helps speedy trial by disposing the cases quickly and the tainted officials will get conviction.”

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