Govt begins to fast-track action against corrupt bureaucrats
Nine months after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi unveiled her five-point action plan to tackle corruption, the government has acted on her idea of fast-tracking action against corrupt bureaucrats. They have also withdrawn discretionary powers of ministers in the allotment of land, telephone and petrol pumps.
Accepting the recommendations made by a Group of Ministers (GoM), which was set up after Sonia's announcement at the 83rd Congress Plenary Session at Burari on December 20 last year, the government on Wednesday made it mandatory for a prosecution sanction request to be decided within three months.
Concerned secretaries to the government and ministers will now have to explain any delay in writing to the cabinet secretary and the Prime Minister respectively. Necessary follow up action for implementing these decisions, by way of amendment of rules, is expected soon, the government said.
In the case of ministers' discretionary powers, only the home minister and the defence minister retain theirs to grant compensation to victims of Naxal violence and war widows respectively.
Babus compulsorily retired from service will now also face up to a 20 per cent cut in their pension.
However, the government has decided against summarily dismissing a blatantly corrupt official without giving him a chance to defend himself. Thus Article 311, which gives this right to a government servant, will remain untouched for now.
The government has decided to bring an all encompassing public procurement Bill in Parliament by the end of the current year, which was promised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Independence Day. To ensure timely delivery of public services, the government will bring in a national-level citizen's charter Bill soon, it was announced. The issue of electoral reforms such as the right to recall and keeping chargesheeted persons away from elections will be discussed by the PM with political parties soon, the government said.
When asked if these measures were being taken as a result of the Anna Hazare agitation, personnel minister V. Narayanswamy and law minister Salman Khursheed clarified that the GoM on corruption was set up on January 6, much before Anna's protest.
The step towards speedier prosecution sanctions is significant because according to the CBI and CVC, as on July 31, there were as many as 164 corrupt government servants regarding whom sanctions were pending for over three months, stopping the investigative agencies from chargesheeting them. In fact, there are cases where requests are pending for over two years - the oldest case is of January 2009 - where government departments have been sitting on prosecution sanction requests.
Many IAS, IPS and Group A officers feature in this list. The Supreme Court guidelines in the Vineet Narain case saying sanctions must be decided within three months were being violated. The government has decided to fix responsibility for such delays.
"In all cases where the investigating agency has requested sanction for prosecution, it will be mandatory for the competent authority to take a decision within a period of three months.
In the event of refusal of sanction to prosecute, the competent authority will have to submit its order including reasons for refusal, to the next higher authority for information within seven days. Wherever the minister-in-charge of the department is the competent authority and he decides to deny the permission, it would be incumbent on the minister to submit to the PM the reasons for denial, within seven days of passing such an order," the government said.
It will be the responsibility of the secretary of each department or ministry to monitor all such requests and submit a certificate every month to the cabinet secretary to the effect that no case is pending for more than three months.
As many as 1,282 CBI cases are pending trial for over 10 years in courts while 22 cases are pending trial for over 20 years.
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