CVC's deadline for probe against govt officials

CVC's deadline for probe against govt officials
HARISH GUPTA

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 15: Taking strong exception to the delay by ministries and departments in initiating inquiries against allegedly guilty government servants, the Central Vigilance Commission has now fixed a six months time-frame for completing such probes.

Confirming this here today, Vigilance Commissioner V S Mathur said that the Commission was constrained to issue such a directive as most of the ministries had done virtually nothing against those found guilty by it.The Commission has directed that ``preliminary hearing and inspection of listed documents'' be done within four weeks, issuing of summons to witnesses and fixing date for regular hearing be done during the next three months and inquiry report be submitted in another two months time.

Mathur said quick punishment to the guilty and exoneration of the innocent was the key to the success of any vigilance system. The Commission has also noted that frequent shifting of inquiry officers by various departments, failure of ministries in furnishingrelated documents and delaying tactics by the accused lead to accumulation of thousands of cases.

On some occasions, some departments took years to complete even preliminary inquiry against the accused. Mathur remarked that it was due to this very reason that ``we have decided to monitor the progress in each pending case hence forth.''

He said one of the reasons for the CVC not giving clearance to public servants whose files are sent to it was the delay by the departments concerned in supplying required information. He admitted that this caused problems to the innocent against whom frivolous complaints were filed just to delay their promotions or postings. It was to avoid this that the Commission had fixed a time-frame and the government must follow , he said