Bihar govt cracks down on corruption, 91 officers to be dismissed

Call it the Aam Aadmi Party effect -- Bihar has decided to dismiss 91 corrupt public servants (officers) from service within one month with more on their way out in the coming months.

The state Chief Secretary A K Sinha said that 91 public servants convicted of corruption will be dismissed in February after completing the formalities.

“More public servants are likely to be dismissed soon as the process against 50 more officers involved in corruption is underway,” Sinha said.

Sinha said the government has also decided to withhold the pension of such officers. “We want to send across a tough message,” he said.

Action will also be taken against officers trying to protect corrupt officers. “Till now we have chargesheeted 856 public servants in cases of corruption and launched operations for the identification of disproportionate assets,” he said.

An official of the state vigilance unit said that most of the officers to be dismissed were caught red-handed accepting bribes.

The decision to dismiss them was made in view of departmental proceedings that established the charges against the officials.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had ordered to expedite the inquiry against corrupt officers and to dismiss them from service within two months if found guilty of corruption.

Kumar said that his government has a zero tolerance policy towards corruption.

The Economic Offences Unit of Bihar police raided half a dozen corrupt officers in Patna and other places in the state and found disproportionate assets worth crores of rupees.

Till date the state government has initiated the process of property confiscation against half a dozen officials under the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009.

The government has already confiscated the houses of Indian Administrative Service officer Shiv Shankar Verma, an IPS officer and a treasury clerk, Girish Kumar, in Patna and turned them into school for poor children.