The most talked about case registered by the State agencies was the trapping of Sanjay Gupta, an IAS officer of 1988 batch HP cadre, who was booked on charges of accumulating disproportionate assets and was allegedly caught red handed with Rs 2 lakhs during a search conducted at his residence. Not only this, Minhas and his team have booked many other prominent officers of the State departments. For instance, Himachal Pradesh Electricity Board's Chief Engineer (operations) Litesh Malhotra was caught accepting a bribe of Rs 4,25,000 from a contractor. The hit list also includes PWD officials OP Sharma and Tek Chand accepting bribes of Rs 10,82,000 and Rs 9,44,000, respectively.
Quiz him on what are the major hurdles tackling such operations, Minhas rues that strong lobbies try to dilute cases through an interlocutory order where officers of prominent stature are involved, “Jurisdiction takes long time, and it must be made time bound; not more than six months. Sanjay Gupta managed to get his suspension terminated through strong external pressures, but government supported us a lot in most of the cases and there were some major penalties.”
Minhas is content with the fact that he and his team has reinstated the trust in the common man and has brought momentum and transparency in the process. “People are appreciating our work, and this is definitely a source of encouragement for me and my boys.”
Minhas has a team of 100 investigating officers in his team and has forwarded a request to the Centre for deputation of 45 more officers in his team. “We are targeting 50-60 trap operations in the year 2010; hence we need to build our team as well. Besides this we are looking forward to actively involve the ex-officio vigilance officers who proved to be really helpful in the recent past. We carry internal audits and are very soon planning an outside public audit system, to gauge how do people outside rate our performance.”
Minhas believes that motivation and boosting the morale keeps his team on the toes. “Our organisation follows a three-tier system of communication that allows proper coordination between SHOs and IOs and helps keeping everyone in the loop. We are constantly working on building up technical intelligence and encourage a merit based system,” he adds.
Interestingly, the officers on the basis of merit are awarded 10 per cent of the total money recovered; a step that Minhas believes gives monetary boost to his officers.
The vigilance department has also launched a website to increase the influx of complaints by public, but it is not getting a good response. However, Minhas seems determined to make it click with the general public. “Most of the complaints are still received through informers or in written. The virtual mode is yet to catch up. The internet penetration in HP is a problem but it is being received well as it is our effort to strengthen the tenterhooks of transparency in the state.”
Hope the CM is listening as, IT penetration in the State is on a continuous low as compared to other states. However, Minhas is busy these days to encompass complete computerisation of all the Police stations and improving the infrastructure of the same. This is one of his aims as he puts across, “The land has been allotted, the financial hurdles have been met through and the work has taken off.”
The Vigilance wings across the nation have been facing flak from media and public at large but it only remains to be seen that how consistent Himachal Pradesh Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau’s performance will be in times to come, but the nation definitely would want more of such action in future.
