PANJIM: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Directorate of Vigilance is, it appears, to be under the direct control of the Goa Police and under the effective supervision Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, and does not function as an independent body.
IPS officer Vimal Das Gupta has been given additional charge as SP of the bureau, which technically reports to the Director Vigilance, while also holding charge of SP FRRO which comes under the control of the Goa police.
SP Das Gupta and the investigation officer of the Ganshyam Malvankar case, were spotted at Chief Minister’s official residence at Altinho with the Malvankar case files at the instance of CM Parsekar on Friday morning. Malvankar, who is Parsekar’s brother-in-law, was arrested by the ACB while accepting bribe of Rs 1,00,000 to allot a plot in an industrial estate.
However, SP Das Gupta denied this and said that neither has he been reporting to the IGP nor has he been asked to report him.
“Whatever the cases, complaints and files are coming to me is my jurisdiction, only in case of gazetted officers we need to take approval of the Chief Vigilance Officer, we are independent and Goa Police is not interfering in our working,” Das Gupta said. Though IGP Sunil Garg said that the posting of the SPs and IPS officers is the prerogative of the government, it is also on record that a few months ago he moved an internal circular to get ACB within their control, which led to a controversy between the Vigilance department and Goa Police. An officer from the ACB has confirmed that such a circular from Goa Police was received and later tackled with the government by Vigilance Director Amarsen Rane, who was transferred out on Monday, making him yet another fall guy, in the process of the government taking the Anti Corruption Bureau completely under its grasp.
This is for the first time that the SP of ACB, a wing of the Vigilance Department, has been given charge of FRRO, a wing of Goa Police. Also pertinent is that there are two cadre posts vacant in Goa – SP North and SP South – which should ideally be headed by IPS officers are currently filled by Goa Police officers. The ACB post is not an IPS cadre posting.
Sources from the Police Headquarters said that the SP Das Gupta has been reporting to IGP Garg and he corresponds with Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.
Inspector Nolasco Raposo, who had trapped Malvankar and then SP George, has already been shunted from ACB under massive political influence.
