‘An overlap… in some areas, looks like CVC is reporting to Lokpal’

Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary (Express photo: Anil Sharma)

Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary, who headed the panel that cleared the promotion of CBI special director Rakesh Asthana despite a dissent note from CBI director Alok Verma, says an inquiry cannot be ordered solely on the basis of diary or third-party entries, unless there is supporting evidence. In this interview, he also discusses the role of the CVC once the Lokpal comes into existence, and a proposed a corruption index for government departments. Excerpts:

Once the Lokpal is set up, what will the role of the CVC be? Does the CVC have any reservations?

We have submitted before the Parliament committee that there are certain areas where there is an overlap between CVC and Lokpal. We have pointed out that between two statutory bodies, it may not be appropriate to have that kind of a thing. It should be made clearer, and domain should be independent. In the present form in which the Lokpal Bill has been enacted, and the form in which CVC is already enacted and functioning, there are certain common areas where CVC has jurisdiction and Lokpal also has jurisdiction — and in some areas, it looks like CVC is reporting to Lokpal. These issues have been pointed out before the committee. We have suggested some solutions . what should be delineated to which authority. It is up to Parliament to decide and if they decide in its wisdom, we will have to go by that.

Since 2014, there has been a rise in the number of corruption complaints. Has there been no dip in corruption?

People are reporting more. I am not saying corruption has increased or decreased because, based on the complaints, it is very difficult to say that. But people have got to know that they have the right to complain, and they have also recognised that if they complain somebody is going to look into it… Unfortunately, many of these complaints are getting reported to wrong agencies. For example, deficiency in delivery of services — and they cannot be attributed to corrupt practices… sending those complaints to the vigilance department only chokes the tunnel. The gross number of complaints the vigilance department gets ranges from 50,000 to 60,000. Most of these are not signed, unnamed and unverifiable, or do not relate to government and relate to private service providers. Actionable complaints are only a case of corruption or violating the laid-down procedure to favour or disfavour someone.

In 2015, there were 20 cases where the CVC recorded a difference of opinion with the government as far as taking punitive action against officers was concerned. In 2016, such cases rose to 50…

Difference of opinion is recorded annually in the CVC and placed before Parliament. We only report cases of difference of opinion worth mentioning and do not record all cases, some of which may be minor. So the numbers could be higher than what is recorded in the annual reports. We like to place it before Parliament so that the public at large comes to know that there are such cases. And more importantly, it acts as a check on organisations that either knowingly or in casual ways do not adhere to the advice of the commission. In 2016, a handful of them got reported unlike in previous years.

In corruption cases where a government officer or a minister is named, how far do diary entries or third-party entries count as evidence?

The Supreme Court had held that if someone’s name figures in a diary or a document, it doesn’t cast a shadow on his name. If the authenticity of the documents is not established, then further discussion is a waste. If the authenticity of the documents is established, under the Income Tax Act, it would be for the person from whom the diary is seized to explain the contents. Under the IT Act, a presumption is that the document found from your possession contains true entries [as far as the raided person is concerned]. But as far as a third person is concerned, it is not admissible evidence unless there is supporting evidence… Merely because somebody’s name figures in somebody else’s diary, more so in coded form, it is not going to take you anywhere. They can also be engineered documents. There has to be an independent verifiable fact… Without that you cannot be opening a wild-goose chase and a roving inquiry which effects the reputation of the people.

The CVC was to come up with an integrity (corruption) index for 25 public sector organisations — such as IOCL, ONGC, NTPC, Railways — and has engaged IIM-Ahmedabad for this. How far has it progressed after a year?

We wanted to measure what is called the integrity of organisations. As an organisation, we wanted to measure “Am I doing what I said?” and “What I am saying, am I implementing?” Ultimately, the aim is to bring transparency, accountability and efficiency in services rendered by the PSU and government departments. If that is to improve, then there has to be set or laid-down SOPs (standard operating procedures) on how a particular thing will be done in an organisation. If there are no SOPs, it leads to arbitration. The commission has been telling the organisations’ CVOs (chief vigilance officers) to review all the processes available in their organisations and come out with SOPs so that the public knows what procedure has to be followed. Let’s assume that we have such a procedure, but how do we know whether it is being implemented or not? The integrity index sought to study and measure whether organisation have laid-down policies and study them how they are followed. IIM-A is guiding us how to go about it and interacted with all 25 organisation and come up with a few guidelines. There is a need for modification to these guidelines before we finally come up with the report as different organisations have different parameters. We hope that a draft index is ready by March 2018.