By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
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The Central Vigilance Commission welcomed Supreme Court order setting a timeline for giving prosecution sanction in cases against public servants.
“Sanctioning of prosecution by competent authority within a timeframe of four months will be a big help in fighting corruption, and will expedite action against corrupt public officials,” CVC Pradeep Kumar told TOI.
The CVC’s response came in the wake of the Supreme Court saying that “delay in granting such sanction has spoilt many valid prosecution and is adversely viewed in public mind that in the name of considering a prayer for sanction, a protection is given to a corrupt public official as a quid pro quo for services rendered by the public official in the past or may be in the future and the sanctioning authority and the corrupt officials were or are partners in the same misdeeds”.
The CVC has been at the receiving end of delaying tactics adopted by various departments to stall prosecution of officials against whom corruption proceedings are pending. As of December 2011, prosecution sanction was pending in at least 24 cases for more than four months.
In November, there were 28 cases pending with 17 ministries for over four months. The highest, of 10 pending cases, was with the Finance Ministry — four of them before the Central Board of Direct Taxes and four of them before the Central Board of Excise and Customs.
