Anti- corruption watchdog marred by backlog

Karnataka's Lokayukta faces a credibility crisis with 214 pending prosecution requests and a backlog of 22,699 complaints, hampered by staffing shortages.

The Karnataka Lokayukta, an anti-corruption watchdog set up four decades ago to clean up public administration, is grappling with a crisis of credibility as thousands of cases pile up and sanctions for prosecution languish for years in government offices.

Anti- corruption watchdog marred by backlog

New data released by the Lokayukta shows that 214 requests seeking permission to prosecute government officials on corruption charges remain pending across departments.

According to the data, more than half of these -- 108 -- were filed this year through August, suggesting that the backlog is accelerating. Sixty-three proposals date to 2024, 23 to 2023, and nine to 2022. At least three proposals submitted in 2018 are still awaiting clearance.Those older cases involve engineers from the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company, where sanction requests were forwarded to the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited in February 2018.

In one unusual case in Gadag district, the zilla panchayat’s chief executive officer approved prosecutions against a group of Panchayat Development Officers and secretaries in May 2022, only to reverse the decision four days later. A Lokayukta letter urging reinstatement of the sanction has not yielded movement, leaving the matter frozen.

While those files sit idle, the institution itself is overwhelmed. By the close of July, pending complaints had reached 22,699, according to the Lokayukta’s website. In July alone, 1,270 new cases were filed, outpacing the 845 that were resolved. Officials inside the agency acknowledge the bottleneck. “Every month we see more complaints being filed than resolved. The backlog is now at a level where investigations cannot even be initiated in thousands of cases,” said one official, requesting anonymity.

The distribution of pending cases reveals the scale of the challenge: 7,143 complaints lie before the Lokayukta, 6,948 with Upa Lokayukta-1, and 8,608 with Upa Lokayukta-2. An additional 1,296 disciplinary inquiries remain open. Even complaints taken up suo motu by Lokayukta B.S. Patil and his deputies are now part of the queue.

Much of the strain stems from a shortage of personnel. Of the 1,929 posts sanctioned for officers and staff, many are vacant. Requests to fill 66 Group-C positions, including clerks and assistants, are still pending. Eight districts lack Superintendents of Police attached to the agency, and a proposal to create 339 additional posts has awaited government approval for more than a year. “Without adequate staff, even routine scrutiny of complaints gets delayed. The result is a growing mountain of files with little progress,” another official said.

The Lokayukta’s enforcement record underscores its limited reach. Over the past two years, 218 raids were conducted against 219 government employees. Reports were filed in 150 cases, but none of the targeted officials have been punished. Eighty-two were suspended, and four cases were recommended for prosecution. Sanction has been cleared in only two.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah, speaking in the Legislative Council in response to a question from legislator C.T. Ravi, acknowledged the gap between raids and accountability. In the last three years, he said, no official subjected to a raid has faced punishment. Investigations remain underway in 113 raid cases. Proceedings were stayed by the High Court in 67 matters, while 34 first information reports were quashed. Appeals are being prepared in those instances, he added.