Govt to review its fight against corruption

The move is part of the mandatory obligation after ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). India has ratified the global convention to check corruption on May 9 last year.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has invited expression of interest (EoI) from registered Indian law schools, law firms, academic or research organisations to undertake the self evaluation study.

The selected agency will get 36 weeks for the project.

The task of the selected firm will be to find out whether Indian domestic laws are fully or partly compliant or non-compliant with the convention. It would be expected to study, analyse and assess the requirements for compliance under the convention by looking at the relevant documents.

The agency will also be mandated to find gaps and interact with ministries of Home Affairs, External Affairs, Law & Justice, Corporate Affairs; Central Vigilance Commission and CBI to gather inputs or clarifications while meeting requirements laid down under the UNCAC.

However, two major areas - bribery of foreign public officials and bribery in private sector - will not be part of the report.

UNCAC is an international legal instrument to deal with corruption, which imposes obligations on member states to provide legal and administrative measures for facilitating recovery of assets in trans border corruption and promoting international co-operation in combating trans-border graft through measures like mutual legal assistance, extraditions and joint investigations among others.

India is among the 160 nations who have either ratified or acceded to the UNCAC provisions.