Bhubaneswar: When the State is agog with daily detection of ‘tainted’ jackpots of the Pathaks, and the Odisha Vigilance as usual grabbing all the limelight with the Pathaks and Panigrahis busy calling it a ‘plot’ to fix them, here is a big shocker dropped by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data over the years.
It has been observed that over the years (2015-19), in more than half of the cases made out under the Prevention of Corruption (PCA) of 1988, the accused in Odisha managed to secure honourable acquittals from the courts of law.
A keen glance shows that the conviction rate, as in judicial courts sentencing the accused as guilty, hovered between 43 -48 per cent for the period between 2015-2019. The rate in 2019 was 48.6 per cent.
Comparison With Central Corruption Watchdogs
In contrast, the conviction rate last year (2019) in the national corruption watchdog, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was over 68 per cent. The CBI had a track record of achieving…