No action on last-minute graft complaints against bureaucrats: CVC

No action will be taken on last- minute corruption complaints against bureaucrats when they are being considered for senior-level posts or promotions, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has said.

The announcement may come as a relief to bureaucrats, some of whom complain of a rise in motivated allegations of corruption against them ahead of a proposed promotion, empanelling or posting.

The CVC provides vigilance clearance to central government officers for senior-level appointments and promotions.

Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary said any complaint received within six months of a proposed elevation or empanelment etc would not to be taken into account.

"Generally there is a trend of complaints coming up just before somebody gets either promoted or is about to be considered for a post. By and large, it is there," Chowdary told PTI.

However, he added a rider to the provision, saying "misconduct" would not be ignored.

"If a misconduct itself is conducted, let's say, yesterday or the day before yesterday, you cannot be immune to that," he said.

Chowdary had earlier advocated penal provisions to deter people from filing motivated or vexatious complaints.

He said the time taken to provide a vigilance clearance to a government employee had been brought down from over three months to 3-5 weeks now.

"The communication between the CBI and CVC used to take place manually. It used to take a lot of time. We have now got a dedicated encrypted email (system) so a lot of time has been cut," the chief of the probity watchdog said.

Citing reasons behind the delay in clearances, he said verifications needed to be done from three ends -- from the department's own source, CVC's records and the CBI.

"In the case of the CBI, it has to get input from all over the country because a person may have been posted anywhere from Kashmir to Kanyakumari during his service. So it takes time," Chowdary said.