Hidden Reality : CORRUPTION WATCHDOG 3 C’s

Ravi Srivastava

'CVC though called a ‘Watchdog’ and has even superintending powers over CBI , factually it is not even Stray/street dog , leave aside biting , it does not even bark'

"CAG is a classic example that how a defunct body can redeem itself , for 5o years CAG was an ordinary Govt. Auditor, whose job is to keep an eye on utilization of Public exchequer by Public Authorities .They  normally station their Auditors in Govt. companies as Resident/Govt. Auditor and have office in company’s  corporate offices only. Lakhs of pages of report gather dust since the job of agency is  to discover, examine the misuse of Public money and report to Govt. who will in turn hand it over to various standing committees of Parliamentarians who make visit to Public sector undertakings , stay in 5 star hotels at Hill stations or Beach resorts on account of Public sector undertakings only along with their spouses sometimes .Finally no action on such voluminous reports are taken and destines to archives"

Team Anna’s Jan lok pal bill  which has become a bone of contention between the Government  and Civil society had approximately 13 issues of mismatch , out of which one contentious issue is to make the CVC, CBI&CAG independent , perception is that Government is scared of passing too much of Powers to the Jan Lok Pal and intends to dilute the provisions of the Bill in such a manner that even if a Public Servant is caught  enough escape route is made available to defend himself .

The fear in the minds of Politicians, Babu’s is that in the very first tenure of 2 years of installing Jan Lok pal , more then half of the Ministers and similar proportion of Babu’s will be either sacked or land in Jail.

Subsequent paras will deal with the 3 dreaded C’s of Govt. feared by Public servants and how effectively these are managed and compromised so that they remain unscathed. These 3 are Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Central Bureau of investigation(CBI) and Central Vigilance Commission(CVC), all 3 have constitutionally appointed heads chosen by the PM, Leader of Opposition , HM from serving or superannuated Babu’s including IRS, IPS officers, by virtue of their inherent love , affection , empathy for their brethren , even if a case is made, it is diluted in such a way that the Elevation , posting , assignment and benefits of the serving bureaucrat remain unaffected/protected, take the example of Thomas who was appointed CVC despite Charge sheet  against him and finally Apex court had to null his appointment.

Modus operandi for such appointments is suppose a CPSU(Central Public Sector Undertaking) Director aspiring to become Chairman and having a case against him , he will swiftly depute a company official (All oustation based CPSUs have a Delhi Coordination office)to keep a close liaison with CVC , such officers are almost Dalal’s/Fixers in the capital for respective CPSU’s/Deptt, his file is tracked on day to day basis, such coordination offices have agents in the guise of consultants in the parliament, Ministry , CBI and have crores of Rupees of Unaudited  Budget at their disposal, such agents ensure that the pending case is closed before, CVC nod for appointment is given. Such clearances are also essential  before releasing Pension, Benefits of retiring PSU Board level executives  or their elevation in the Organization.

CVC though called a ‘Watchdog’ and has even superintending powers over CBI , factually it is not even Stray/street dog , leave aside biting , it does not even bark for a simple reason that it is paid established and controlled by the same Govt, whose servants it has to Act against, and therefore it has no option but to wag its tail before its masters. Second handicap is its understaffing ,barely  37 officers manning all the crucial departments , CVC appoints more then 250 CVO’s in CPSU’s and Govt. departments like Railways, Income Tax, some of these have Lakhs of employees working in those establishments .CVC officials have admitted that they are not more then a Post Office, which receives the complaint from Public, Employees  against Public Servants and in turn forwards it to the same company for investigating and taking action against their own erring officials, In the process if the complainant is a “Whistle blower” from the same Organization his identity and complaint both are fully compromised and he is thrown before the ‘wolves’ of the Organization to have a field day.

CVC’s powers are recommendatory, its recommendations are passed through the concerned Ministry’s vigilance and finally to the Chairman or Deptt. Head   who decides whether he concurs with the recommendation or dilutes it e.g if CVC recommends demotion , the deptt will reduce it to stoppage of increments, if CVC recommends termination, he will be suspended and so on.

Departmental CVO’s are a  defunct lot, they consider PSU assignment as  a “Parking slot” before their next time scale promotion and enjoy all the privileges, perquisites, benefits of the Government company, distinctly recall one Principal Accountant General appointed as CVO of HPCL he  was selling his Books to company officials and company was sponsoring his CD’s of Yoga exercises. Such privileges these CVO’s  IRS, IPS officers would have never enjoyed in their parent cadres where they will be stuffed in a 2Room flat inDhaula kuan or R.K.Puram in capital e.g once he gets assigned as CVO in Bharat Petroleum Bombay he gets a 4 BHK bunglow with company car, fully Air-conditioned office and Residence, Normally these officers use these postings as “Picnic”, neither they have any attachment with company’s performance nor have any intention to curb  prevailing corruption .Such CVO’S confine themselves to mere preaching during Vigilance awareness week (a ritual in the first week of November every year)and quietly move out after completing tenure of 2-3 years.

Another farce is that CVO’s functionally report to CVC but administratively report to Chairman or HOD of the deptt, if any complaint against any company employee is received, CVO takes it to Chairman and bargains for some additional benefit for himself else he threatens the chairman to expose his wrong doings end result remains that “I scratch your back you scratch mine”

If any employee directly reports corruption to CVC /CBI  the  complaint is forwarded to the respective CVO and in the process his identity is exposed/compromised with the same people against whom he had complained.There is no punishment anywhere in the world for making a complaint but such “thorny’ individual is treated as an “eyesore” in the organization and a threat to a well oiled institutionalized corrupt system prevailing in the very organization .All people in Authority pounce upon him and try to implicate him in some frivolous  disciplinary cases with the sole objective of easing him out from the organization in the first available opportunity.

Less said the better about functioning of CBI which is rechristened as Criminal bureau of investigation or congress bureau of Investigation, whose primary function is to “book” the people , who are against the ruling party and “release” or give the “clean chit” to those who belong to ruling party, objective of this agency is not to conclude the case(as far as possible) and drag it indefinitely to facilitate retirement of the guilty Public servant .Apex court has fired the agency hundred of times for their Partisan, enquiries .It has got its own courts, prosecuting machinery but it is a fact that 90% of the cases fall flat in the courts because of shoddy investigation or weak prosecution.

CAG is a classic example that how a defunct body can redeem itself , for 5o years CAG was an ordinary Govt. Auditor, whose job is to keep an eye on utilization of Public exchequer by Public Authorities .They  normally station their Auditors in Govt. companies as Resident/Govt. Auditor and have office in company’s  corporate offices only. Lakhs of pages of report gather dust since the job of agency is  to discover, examine the misuse of Public money and report to Govt. who will in turn hand it over to various standing committees of Parliamentarians who make visit to Public sector undertakings , stay in 5 star hotels at Hill stations or Beach resorts on account of Public sector undertakings only along with their spouses sometimes .Finally no action on such voluminous reports are taken and destines to archives

It is first time since independence that this body has unearthed a Rs. 1.76 Lakh cr. 2G scam, MOP&NG’s RIL’s KG Basin scam(quantum of Public money  plundered is yet to be established), nevertheless this agency has at least  shown the courage of exposing their masters which must be applauded.

To conclude it is a very legitimate demand from TEAM ANNA that all these 3 agencies must be made to report Jan Lok Pal (CBI’s only Anti corruption wing), the live example is Apex court monitored  probe into   2G scam  which has sent 16 Ministers, Parliamentarians and corporate honchos behind the bars of Tihar Jail.

Long Live Jan Lok Pal

Whistleblower , Activist & Indian Against Corruption active volunteer .

I R.P.SRIVASTAVA, 56 year old ,male Graduated in Science and Chemical Technology in the year 1975, after an stint of 1 year at Eicher Tractors and 6 years in Kansai Nerolac(erstwhile Goodlass Nerolac), I joined HPCL in 1982 as an Operations Officer in Grade ‘A’.

"I am a crusader against corruption , corruption which destroyed my life exposed Rs. 200 cr. corruption in Petroleum industry Marker system invited the wrath of Murli Deora his sychphant beaurocrats , chairman of the company who promptly dismissed me from service to appease their boss"

Please Read  " Tale of Two Whistleblower of HPCL to know more.....

R. P. Srivastava

ravi4354@gmail.com
304, AUM SAI  Sector-7
Kharghar, Navi Mumbai  410210
Mob-  09820183924 L/L 02227744012
India Against corruption Activist and Volunteer from Navi Mumbai

My Blog http://raviprakash4354.blogspot.com

Contact him if you want to join me in the fight .Because people support can make huge difference .