Deficiencies in the present anti-corruption systems at State level.

Deficiencies in the present anti-corruption systems at State level.

All vigilance agencies (like state vigilance department, departmental vigilance wings) and anti-corruption agencies (like anti-corruption branch of state police, CID etc) are directly under the control of state government and therefore, ineffective in fairly investigating corruption cases against their political bosses. In addition, some states have the institution of Lokayuktas.

Lokayuktas:

•       Lokayuktas cannot initiate investigations on their own. They have to seek permission of state government to investigate cases involving officials above certain levels.

•          In some states, vigilance department has been given powers over bureaucrats and Lokayuktas have been given powers only over politicians. Such division of jurisdiction hampers investigations. So, in a case involving both politician and bureaucrats (which is the case most of the times), both Lokayukta and the vigilance department feel handicapped.

•    Lokayuktas merely have advisory roles. They do not have the powers to directly initiate prosecution. They make recommendations to the government, which may or may not agree with those recommendations.

•   They also do not have adequate resources to investigate the large number of complaints that they receive.

• Lokayukta is appointed by the state government in an intransparent and arbitrary manner. In some states, their independence has been questioned.