The Central Vigilance Commission has drastically brought down the pendency of disciplinary matters against central government employees and carried out an exercise to review pending cases so as to ensure that all cases reach a logical end within a reasonable time.
This was conveyed by Central Vigilance Commissioner Suresh N Patel and vigilance commissioners Arvind Kumar and Praveen Kumar Srivastava when they called on Union Minister for Personnel Jitendra Singh on Thursday.
Citing figures, Mr. Patel informed Mr. Singh that the pendency of 2,099 disciplinary matters for the period prior to December 2018 had been reduced to 227 by June 30, 2022 due to a special campaign initiated by the Commission in 2020, an official release said.
Similarly, overall outstanding disciplinary matters which on an average as on December 2019 used to be around 5,000 at a given point of time has come down drastically in the range of 1,700 now due to cooperation of the authorities at different levels, it said.
The Minister has been conveyed that the Commission had started an exercise in 2020 to review pending cases of disciplinary matters so as to ensure that all cases reach a logical end within a reasonable period of time.
The exercise was taken up in a campaign mode so that those found guilty are punished without delay so as to prevent them from further wrongdoing and those found innocent are exonerated to avoid unnecessary stress to them.
With support of all disciplinary authorities, inquiring, presenting authorities, chief vigilance officers and staff of the commission, the old cases were taken up for disposal.
Mr. Patel pointed out that this has happened in spite of the prevalence of pandemic during the time period of the campaign. Even for the remaining cases timelines have been set for each and every individual case through continuous monitoring with CVOs.
Mr. Singh said by appointing the CVC and two vigilance commissioners as mandated under law in the first week of this month itself, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent out a message of policy of zero tolerance for corruption.
He also quoted Mr. Modi's address at the CVC conference at Kevadia in Gujarat in October, 2021, wherein he said, "In the last six-seven years, the government has succeeded in instilling the confidence that it is possible to contain corruption. Today, there is the political will to attack corruption and continuous improvement is also being carried out at the administrative level".
The Minister lauded the special efforts of the Commission and said this has brought positivity amongst the government employees which shall encourage them to take decisions in the interest of the organisation while following procedures without any fear of unwarranted disciplinary action.
Also, the timely disciplinary action would work as a deterrent for those whose intentions and actions may not be in the interest of the organisation and deserve to be punished, the Minister pointed out.
The Central Vigilance Commission deals with the complaints against employees of central government and central government-controlled organisations, including PSBs, PSUs and UTs.
Arising out of investigations carried out through Chief Vigilance Officers (CVOs) in various organisations, wherever lapses of vigilance nature are noticed, the Commission advises initiation of disciplinary action.
