The Central Vigilance Commission has foiled attempts by senior government officials to escape the Commission's probes on complaints against them.
The CVC smelt the trick to bypass it and forced the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) on March 8 to issue a corrigendum, removing the complaints received by the CVC from the purview of the group set up to examine and take appropriate action.
It revised an order, issued on January 14 setting up a separate mechanism to deal with such complaints on the ground that 'frivolous or vague complaints were also given importance' and that hence it was better to get them scrutinised by a group of secretaries headed by the Cabinet Secretary.
The January 14 order said: "Complaints against Secretaries to the Government of India, whether pseudonymous or otherwise, received by the Cabinet Secretariat or the CVC or the DOPT or the Prime Minister's Office, will be first scrutinised by the group headed by the Cabinet Secretary."
The corrigendum drops the words 'or the CVC' and makes it clear that the group will scrutinise any complaint received by the CVC only if it is forwarded to it by the CWC.
The CVC took the stand that the mechanism already exists in the form of its constitution by the government and hence there is no need for the Cabinet Secretary to have a separate mechanism and that too only for the senior bureaucrats of secretary rank in the Government of India.
