Vigilance sees no corrupt cop in Chandigarh, CBI catches 18

CHANDIGARH: No wonder why people seem to have lost faith in the UT vigilance department and taken their graft complaints to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Figures show that while the former found no corrupt cop in the city since 2015, the latter arrested 18, including a station house officer (SHO).


Investigating corruption charges against 29 cops, the vigilance department registered only a few FIRs (firstinformation reports) and made no arrest to gain confidence of the general public. The data gathered since January 2015 shows that the department arrested only four corruption accused and none of them was from police. One was a data-entry operator in the registering and licensing authority (RLA) office, while the others were middlemen in the luxury-car registration scam.

From the same city, the central investigation agency arrested 18 policemen in the act of accepting bribes from several complainants. Among them were the SHO of Mauli Jagran and two additional SHOs of the Sector-31 police station. Two woman SHOs were sent to the Police Lines after their names cropped up in the investigation.

People unware of vigilance department

The trials of these police officers are pending in the special CBI court. The cops transferred to Police Lines are not assigned any case to investigate and they can only do routine office work.

Lack of awareness about the UT vigilance department is also a big reason why people don’t approach it with complaints against corrupt cops.

Asked if he knew about the department, graft case complainant Ramesh Kumar said: “I do not know much about this office how to approach it to file my complaint. But I do know about the CBI office and trust it to hear my case.”

Another complainant, Sita Ram of Ram Darbar, said: “Before I moved the CBI against the additional station house officer of Sector 31, people advised me to avoid going to the vigilance or any other department, where the officers were friends with cops and known to give them tipoffs about complaints. Also, I trust only the CBI to act against corrupt cops.”