•Ritu Sarin: Many people are unaware of the Central Vigilance Commission’s functions. Could you enumerate them?

The CVC has been the apex organisation for overseeing the vigilance function of the government since 1964. It was a one-person organisation up to 1998. After the Jain hawala case, the Supreme Court recommended statutory status be conferred on it. Then it became the CVC, with additional members after the passing of CVC Act in 2003. The CVC, in its present form, dates back to 2004.

CVC has three distinct roles. It oversees the entire vigilance administration of the Government of India and organisations or agencies controlled by and attached to it. That includes the entire public sector and all the banks and insurance companies. For the sake of convenience, we have Chief Vigilance Officers in each organisation. We have selected about 110 organisations where we have a full-time CVO who is an outsider to the system, and who is selected from a panel maintained by the Ministry of Personnel, approved by us and later approved by the government. There are three ministries/departments—railways, customs and excise, and income tax—where we have full-time CVOs but they are not outsiders to the system. They have senior officers heading their vigilance set-ups. In all other ministries or departments, we have part-time CVOs.

Our second responsibility is the superintendence of the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) with regard to the Prevention of Corruption Act. About 70 -75 per cent of the CBI cases fall under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CVC Act clearly says that superintendence should not have any impact on policy, that it should in no way interfere with the investigation.

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