By S A Ishaqui
Hyderabad, Feb 26 : The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday directed the Anti-Corruption Bureau to investigate the role of politicians, public representatives and officers in the liquor syndicate scam and submit a report within three months.The court also made it clear that no officer associated with the investigation of the case should be transferred without its prior permission. A division Bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar set aside a memo issued by the state government in 1999 to constitute an advisory committee to review the complaints against the elected representatives under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to the memo, the ACB was allowed to conduct a preliminary probe whenever it received a complaint against public representatives. However, the preliminary report was to be placed before the advisory committee based on whose advice the ACB would have to proceed further on such complaints. Though the memo was issued in 1999, till date the government had not constituted the committee. Declaring the move of the government to constitute the committee as unconstitutional, the Bench observed that when there was no immunity to elected representatives under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the question of reviewing of such cases by a committee after the preliminary inquiry by the ACB did not arise. The Bench wondered how MPs and MLAs could get this protection when no one, including judges, had such protection. The Bench ruled that the ACB had to conduct a preliminary probe whenever it received complaints of corruption against public representatives and proceed against them for prosecution based on material facts.
