The brotherhood of uniformed batch mates are slowly throwing a protective ring around their beleaguered and under fire mate, Superintendent of Police Atmaram Deshpande, the Principal of the Police Training School at Valpoi against whom there are two inquiries being initiated.
The inquiries were ordered after Herald, in a series of reports, first exposed how trainees in the school were bribing training instructors not to be harassed and left alone and given the basic facilities. The next two, in a series called Police Graft School, detailed how the Principal of the School, SP Deshpande, gave a contract worth Rs 14 lakh for wiring and other work without tenders and without any work orders. Even the quotations for the work were sought two months after the work was completed. When the payment was getting delayed (obviously because the contract itself was clearly fraudulent), the contractor asked for an advance of Rs 5 lakh which was paid in cash. (Herald has a “receipt” of the same, among other documents). This amount was raised, (according to the contractor’s letter to the SP and the government, warning of legal action) from the advance deposit fees of the trainees. The contractor was then forced to return Rs 2 lakh of the amount. These are suspicious cash transactions, do not look transparent and clearly in violation of every State law or general norms of the Central Vigilance Commission to be followed in the process of awarding government contracts.
While the inquiry is on, the protective ring is getting more menacing. For instance, in a complete travesty of transparency, SP Deshpande continues to occupy his position as the head of the Police Training School during the pendency of both inquiries, one by the DIG, an administrative one and the other by the Anti Corruption Bureau. Can we say that the administrative inquiry will be fair when the witnesses are junior officers and trainees who will be asked questions about the conduct of a senior officer who continues to be their superior?
Herald also wishes to share with its readers, an incident which happened in the office of the Anti Corruption Bureau. A member of Herald’s investigation team was there on Tuesday to probe the progress of the ACB inquiry and was waiting to speak to one of the officers when another senior officer who knew him came up and admonished Herald saying the paper was being unfair to an upright officer. The officer even justified the action of SP Deshpande, who happens to be his batch mate, saying that even during the Lusofonia Games and the St Francis Xavier Exposition works, several contracts were allotted and regularized later. If that is true, there should be an independent CBI probe into the contracts awarded for these two events. But coming back to this case, this officer, who will oversee the probe, has already made up his mind about his batch mate (SP Deshpande) who will be the subject of his inquiry, and will justify that awarding on contracts without work orders and tenders is a practice that can be condoned, due to the urgency of the work and the rules laid down for the purpose of awarding contracts be damned.
Currently, both the inquiry teams are busy finding out what documents Herald has, rather than conduct a fair investigation so that the system can be cleansed. Protecting a former fellow officer who is now a superior IPS officer, is the first task. Everything else will revolve around this end objective.
On hand are issues most vital. Should the process to ensure transparency be flouted, should money be drawn from accounts which should not be touched, should trainees be harassed and bribes taken? After all, the definition of graft is not necessarily being caught with your hands in the till. It is about following processes and wearing the transparency tag proudly on your sleeve.
The uniformed force should not shame Goa by protecting graft.
