CHENNAI: After persistent concerns over drop in the number of corruption-related inquiries and investigations taken up by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption in the last few years, the agency has recorded a 48% jump in 2024-25 with 681 inquiries and investigations.
This is also the directorate’s best performance in terms of numbers in the last seven years.
The DVAC recorded 389 enquiries and investigations in 2022-23, which was the agency’s worst performance in a decade. It increased marginally to 460 in 2023-24, before jumping sharply to 681 last year.
The number of government employees being investigated for corruption cases has also increased from 1,217 in 2023-24 to 1,729, a jump of 42%. The agency also secured around 33% more convictions in 2024-25 compared to the previous year.
The jump recorded in 2024-25 was seen on all types of inquiries and investigations, including Preliminary and Detailed Enquiries (PE and DE), Regular Cases (RC) and Traps.
While PE and DE are formal enquiries before registration of cases, RC and Traps indicate probes where FIRs have been filed. As the nomenclature indicates, Traps are where government officials are caught red-handed while accepting bribes.
RCs are outcome of enquiries where there is evidence of corruption; for example if an official is found to be in possession of assets disproportionate to their income or there is documentary evidence of alleged bribe payment.
Although the increase was recorded across all the categories, the 182 RCs registered in 2024-25, which was a jump from 134 the year before, was still lower than the 230 registered in 2021-22.
The number of Traps recorded in 2024-25, however, was the highest in the last decade. PEs and DEs, meanwhile, increased respectively from 118 and 53 in 2023-24 to 171 and 129 in 2024-25.
Jayaram Venkatesan, convenor of NGO Arappor Iyakkam, who has also filed several complaints with the DVAC, alleged despite the better numbers, the agency has gone slow on “high-profile” cases for which there has been a steep drop.
“In most cases, DVAC detachments have only trapped lower and mid-level government officials while taking bribes. Systematic investigations focussed on large-scale corruption which result in RCs are not being done anymore. This reflects in the total RCs filed, which has not yet reached the high of 21-22, the first full year of the current DMK government,” Jayaram contended.
He further alleged DVAC was not filing cases involving big corruption as that would give a window for the ED to open money laundering probes. Cases filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act can be considered as predicate offence for opening probes under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
ED’s recent probes in Tamil Nadu like the alleged Tasmac scam and river sand mining scam were based on DVAC FIRs. DVAC officials remained tight-lipped and said they register cases based on complaints received.