04 November 2004	Thursday	20 Ramazan 1425

LAHORE, Nov 3: The Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) seems helpless in taking action against corrupt patwaris due to their political clout.

The ACE had recently caught red-handed three patwaris, including a proclaimed offender, of the Cantonment and Defence divisions. But two of them were released when the ACE had to accept their bail due to political pressure of some influential provincial government ministers.

However, the third one who was caught with Rs1.2 million in cash and a new car which he had obtained in bribe, is also reportedly exerting pressure on the ACE for his release.

Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that a provincial minister had been involved in protecting the corrupt patwaris, especially of Defence and Cantonment divisions. They said the ACE officials were helpless in initiating any action against them for this reason. "The patwaris are being patronized either by some government officials, politicians or land mafia," they added.

There are over 100 patwaris in Lahore, but an official report suggests that 25 of them are more corrupt and powerful. The ACE annually receives over 500 complaints against the city patwaris. Of them about 70 per cent are withdrawn at the inquiry stage by complainants.

Most of the complaints registered with the ACE in the last several years are against the revenue department. A number of cases against patwaris in the province are also pending with courts.

It has been noted that the land disputes are on the rise due to manipulation of patwaris, as "they change ownership of a property in connivance with the land mafia" that leads to endless litigation.

The ACE director, Brig Aslam Ghuman (retired), on Wednesday chaired a meeting in this regard and decided to devise strategy to deal with the problem.

He directed the assistant director (monitoring) to evaluate the performance of the investigation officers (IOs) and submit the report to him at the earliest. He vowed that the IOs whose performance was not satisfactory would be sent back to their parent departments.

An ACE officer told Dawn that the establishment was planning to gather complete information regarding the bank balance and other assets in and outside the country of the corrupt officials of the revenue department, especially the patwaris.