KOCHI: Over the past five years, as many as 1,389 government officials have been booked in criminal cases, excluding vigilance probes, in Kerala. Interestingly, around 55% of these cases -- 770, to be precise -- were registered against police personnel. The related data was presented in the assembly by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during the budget session.
Overall, officials from 43 state government departments, besides Central government employees, have faced criminal investigation in Kerala since 2019. The education department had the second highest number of officials -- 188 -- accused in criminal cases during the period, followed by the local self-government department (LSGD), with 53 officials. There are 48 cases registered against Central government employees in the state.
A retired officer who served in the DGP rank told TNIE that the numerous measures introduced to improve discipline in the Kerala police force do not seem to have achieved the desired result. Being involved with maintaining law and order, police personnel themselves are quite often seen turning lawbreakers.
“Multiple criminal cases, including those of a grave nature, are being reported against police officials. But it would be wrong to blame the entire police force. While there would be troublemakers in all forces, the authorities have to identify and sideline them so they don’t have a bad influence on others,” the retired officer said.
He said several police officials involved in sexual offences and financial scams were dismissed from service in recent years.
“The activities of police personnel should be monitored and corrective steps taken to prevent them from going astray,” he said.
The former officer also pointed out that many upright officers were targeted with false cases.
“We have several examples of false complaints and cases registered against police officers to demoralise them from doing their duty properly. There is tremendous work pressure on each police person now. We know of many honest police officers who take early retirement after struggling to cope with the pressure,” he said.
Other departments with a high number of criminal cases are health (41), KSEB (39), KSRTC (29), forest (26), revenue (26), agriculture (15), excise (15), PWD (11).
At the same time, corruption cases were registered more among officials with the local self-government and cooperation departments, with a high number of officials facing vigilance probes. Since 2019, a total of 1,028 corruption cases have been registered against government officials in the state, with LSGD accounting for 216 of them. The cooperation department had 165 officials booked in vigilance cases while 160 revenue department officials faced corruption cases.