CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu government’s anti-corruption wing Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) has gone slow on conducting surprise checks in FY25 as compared to the previous year. Additionally, not even a single surprise check was conducted at police stations in the last two years, information sourced through an RTI application showed.
Surprise checks is one of the mechanisms used by DVAC to catch illegal monetary transactions at government offices. It is dependent on the collection of intelligence and surprising corrupt officials, as opposed to trapping them while taking bribe. Surprise checks are usually conducted at departments where significant sums of money are transacted everyday (for example, registration department), with high possibility of bribery.
In response to an RTI filed by Ramiah Ariya, a resident of Chennai, DVAC said that they conducted 140 surprise checks in FY24 and 45 in FY25. No surprise checks were conducted by DVAC at police stations. In response to a similar RTI in 2022, DVAC had said that only five surprise checks had been conducted at police stations in FY21 and FY22, three of which had led to the registration of cases.
Historically, DVAC has been lax in conducting surprise checks at police stations; RTI data had shown that there had not been a single check from 2011-18. “Apart from nabbing bribe collection by cops, such surprise checks can also help prevent other illegal activities in police stations, like custodial violence,” Ariya said.
DVAC sources said that surprise checks are reserved for government offices where they have information of bribe money amassed and that this may not happen at police stations. Additionally, sleuths may be unable to retain the ‘surprise’ element while raiding police stations, the sources explained.
Activist and NGO Arappor Iyakkam’s convenor Jayaram Venkatesan said the data was an indicator of how DVAC does not want to target corruption in police and the agency’s lack of independence. “DVAC’s personnel is made up of cops who are deputed from state police. How will they act against their own,” he said, adding that even surprise checks at traffic junctions could be conducted to nab officials taking bribes.
Furthermore, DVAC’s own actions indicate evidence of corruption in police stations; at least 60 cops were accused in the agency’s cases in the last two years. Last year, the agency arrested a motor vehicle inspector in Salem who tried to bribe an inspector working in DVAC itself.