Panaji, Feb 17 (IANS) Goa needs an anti-corruption law like the one introduced in Bihar to rein in rampant corruption in the bureaucracy, said Javed Raja, the national general secretary of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), Thursday.
Speaking to reporters in Margao, 35 km from here, after kicking off the membership drive of the JD-U whose state unit was launched in Goa, Raja said his party would lobby to replicate the much vaunted anti-graft Bihar law here.
"This law has been much appreciated in Bihar where we are trying to weed out corruption in the bureaucracy. We are going to lobby to have this law introduced in Goa, where corruption is being unearthed everyday," Raja said, after appointing social activist John Paul Pereira as the state party president.
"The Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009, will work wonders in Goa. One is already seeing the results in Bihar," Raja said, referring to the new legislation which aims to tackle corruption in the higher echelons of bureaucracy and retired government officials.
The anti-graft law enables the State to confiscate assets of government officials against whom cases of possessing disproportionate assets have been filed and charge sheets have been submitted in the court of law.
Opposition and civil society groups over the last few years have accused the Digambar Kamat-led government of not just sheltering allegedly corrupt and incompetent officials, but also awarding them with medals and plum postings.
In 2010, the opposition raised a hue and cry after Chandrakant Salgaonkar, a deputy police superintendent accused by both the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party of having links to the narcotics industry, was awarded the chief minister's medal of merit.
Another senior bureaucrat, Sandip Jacques, who is facing a high level probe after being accused by Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar of being a part of a multi-crore excise scandal, was transferred some months back to the crucial post of district collector (north), before he was appointed as an officer on special duty (OSD) to Kamat himself.