NEW DELHI: A whopping 7,157 cases filed by the nation’s premier investigation agency Central Bureau of Investigation under the Prevention of Corruption Act are pending trial in various CBI courts across the country, and more than 20 per cent of them pertain to the four South Indian states, Orissa and Union territory of Puducherry.
Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa and Puducherry alone account for 1,608 (22.46 per cent) of the pending corruption cases.
What’s more, several of the cases have been pending trial for more than 20 years.
This information was revealed in response to a starred question in the Lok Sabha asked by Adagooru Vishwanath, a Congress MP from Mysore constituency in Karnataka.
From Tamil Nadu alone, 469 corruption-related cases are pending trial. Of these, 124 cases were filed over five years ago, while 43 cases relate to a period over 10 years ago, 10 cases are over 15 years old and two cases over twenty years old.
The scene is similar in Andhra Pradesh, where 415 cases filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act are pending trial. Of these, 166 have been awaiting judicial process for over five years and 28 cases for more than 10 years.
Karnataka has 243 cases stuck in various CBI courts, of which 86 cases were filed more than five years ago, 52 cases over 10 years ago and nine more than fifteen years ago. Only one case from the state is as old as 20 years.
The number of pending corruption cases in Kerala stands thus: 185 in total, of which 79 are over five years old, three over 10 years old and four over 15 years old. The CBI courts in Orissa have a total of 238 cases awaiting trial, of which 54 are five-year-old cases, 30 10-year-old cases and three are fifteen-year old cases.
Even in the tiny Union Territory of Puducherry, there are as many as 58 corruption cases pending, of which 30 were filed more than five years ago.