Reports on data loss false: CVC

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the country’s apex anti-corruption watchdog, on Sunday denied reports that it had lost all information related to corruption cases stored on its servers.

The CVC was reacting to news reports alleging that the “hard disk of the CVC portal” had crashed and the data stored to date were lost. 

“The media reports stating that the data stored online about corrupt officials were lost or deleted are misleading and incorrect. The Commission would clarify that it has not lost any data of corrupt officers or any such information related to its core-anti corruption activities and its vital functions,” the CVC said in a rare press release. 

The media reports were based on a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by HR Kosia, a Mumbai-based whistleblower. 

Kosia had sought an action taken report on his complaint, but the CVC denied him information, stating: “Due to technical problems in the working of Compliant Portal of the Commission, it was not possible to provide the action taken on your complaints at this stage.”  Kosia filed an appeal with the appellate authority, which directed the chief public information officer (CPIO) to provide the information in two weeks. Kosia received a second reply on February 9 from the CPIO. It said: “TCS system of the Commission is still not working. It is not possible to provide the action taken on your complaints at this stage.”

The CVC said it was in the process of switching from an older portal to one utilising a cloud-based server for some time since 2016. 

“The new such online portal developed has been made operational since Nov 2016 and is fully functional for citizens and the public to launch complaints of corruption in respect of public servants to the commission. However, migration of earlier data from the physical server to a cloud-based storage application is taking some more time and hence, the status of action taken on earlier complaints is not available online at present,” it said.

The report said that the contract between Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Commission was not renewed. The system allegedly crashed in November last year. 

“Our contract ended in December 2015, but we continued to work on it till December 2016 without a formal contract,” said a TCS spokesperson. 

The TCS spokesperson also said the company was not aware of the problem.