In a first, Lokpal to take up three high-level corruption cases

NEW DELHI: The Lokpal has decided for the first time to take up three high-level corruption cases for “further scrutiny”, and sought more documents from the complainants before the full bench of the anti-corruption ombudsman takes a call on whether or not to launch investigations.

This is more than five months after the Centre notified a format for lodging complaints with it, officials at the watchdog told ET. It considered 17 complaints at the meeting, disposed of 11 of those finding no merit, and sought the status reports on the remaining three from government organisations in a state and a union territory.

Details of the cases weren’t known, as the officials said the Lokpal had codified the complaints to keep secret the identities of the complainants and the accused.


In one of the three cases that it decided to take up, the ombudsman has sought a report also from the Central Vigilance Commission, which is already seized of the corruption matter, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Once it gets additional documents from complainants and reports from government departments, the watchdog, ET has learnt, will convene a meeting of its full bench to finalise if there are evidences of irregularities, favouritism and nepotism under the Prevention of Corruption Act to proceed in the three complaints.

Besides the 17 complaints, 21 fresh cases have been separately bunched and circulated among the Lokpal members — chairperson Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, judicial members Justices Pradip Kumar Mohanty and Abhilasha Kumari and non-judicial members Archana Ramasundaram, Mahendra Singh and Indrajeet Prasad Gautam. There are two vacancies due to the resignation of Justice Dilip B Bhosale and the death of Justice AK Tripathi.

The Lokpal members will look into the complaints for evidence and whether they have been filed as per the format prescribed on its official website. The members will deliberate on the cases to see if they are fit for launching investigation.

Just before the complaint format was notified by the Department of Personnel in March, the Lokpal had disposed of 1,470 cases. Of these, it had sought status reports from the CVC and CBI in 32 complaints.