In order to investigate the offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and to enquire into the complaints relating to corruption against government servants, a separate "Anti-Corruption Cell" was created in the year 1949 in the Rajasthan Police under a Superintendent of Police, in the Crime Branch of the C.I.D.
Later in the year 1957, a separate Anti-Corruption Branch of the Rajasthan Police was established, headed by the Special Inspector General of Police, under the administrative control of the Department of Home, Government of Rajasthan. The office of the Special Inspector-General of Police, Anti-Corruption Bureau, Jaipur was declared a Police Station by the Government, to be known as the Anti-Corruption Police Station, with its territorial jurisdiction extending over whole of the area of the State of Rajasthan vide notification of the Home Deptt.[A] No.F.14/1/4/HA/57 dated 15.7.57 [published in Rajasthan Gazette, Extra ordinary, Part-IV[C] dated 15.7.57], in exercise of the powers conferred by clause[s] of Section 4 of the Criminal Procedure Code 1898.
Through another notification, no.F.14/1/HA/59, of the same date and published the same day in the Rajasthan Gazette, the Government in pursuance of clause (P) of Section 4 read with section 156 and 551 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, empowered all officers of and above the rank of Sub-Inspector of police in the Anti Corruption Bureau to exercise the power of an officer-in-charge of a Police Station.
The notification empowered the Anti-Corruption Police Station to deal with all cognizable offences relating to bribery and corruption including criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation and criminal misconduct in which a public servant was also involved.
In the year 1991 vide notification No. 29(92)Home/Gr.I/90 dated 25-2-1991 the State Government renamed the Department of Anti Corruption as Rajasthan State Bureau of Investigation. Besides this, the notification extended the ambit of RSBI to cases of Essential Commodity Act 1955 & some specific offences under the IPC entrusted to the RSBI by a specific order of the government.
In the year 1998, by notification No. 29(92)Home/Gr.I/90-Part, dated 24-11-1998, the State Government changed the nomenclature from Rajasthan State Bureau of Investigation to Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB).