IIJNM :: Investigations

Working process
Established in 1986, the Lokayukta runs its own mini-court system and 200-member police force on an annual budget of Rs 230 lakhs. In addition to the headline-grabbing raids for excess assets, the office has also set bribery traps for 1,300 government employees since 2002.

During the same period, the Lokayukta has seen more than 26,000 complaints, the majority from average citizens like Tanveer Ahmed.

“I have confidence in the Lokayukta office. I have confidence in Hegde sir,” said Ahmed, who recently filed a complaint against the police department for failing to investigate the robbery of his house. “I will get justice here.”

Like Ahmed’s, many of the complaints are simple grievances. The rest alleged malfeasance. Very few ripen into “enquiries,” administrative trials that weigh evidence and recommend punishment.

Problems
In the last seven years, the office has completed 414 such trials; another 200 are pending. The Lokayukta doesn’t maintain statistics about how the enquiries turn out, but the IIJNM sample indicates that about half the cases fall apart.

The problem: It takes up to five years for a complaint to reach the enquiry stage.

Witnesses and complainants lose interest or change their minds, recanting their statements.

“Well we don’t have direct evidence, but I will say in every case, when a witness turns hostile, it is for an illegal consideration,” said Hegde.

R Chandrashekhar, one of the five enquiry officers—retired sessions court judges who conduct the internal hearings—agreed.

“In many cases, though we will be morally convinced that the accused is a guilty person, there is no legal evidence,” he said. “We will be helpless but we will have to discharge him.”

Even seemingly open-and-shut cases go sideways.

Of the 26,000 complaints, 66 were punished

Of the 26,000 complaints, 66 were punished

In one such case, Eshappa, a Village Accountant from Agoli village in Koppal district, was allegedly trapped in March 2000 by the Lokayukta taking a bribe of Rs 1000. A powdered chemical smeared on the notes turned his fingers pink. The Lokayukta had planted witnesses a few feet away, inside his house. But by the time the matter came to the administrative hearing seven years later, the pink was long gone and the witnesses denied they were ever at the scene. The charge of corruption could not be proved.

Hegde blamed his lack of staff for self-defeating delays. Until he was granted 110 more police officers three months ago, his office was operating with roughly the same manpower as when it was established 23 years ago, he said.