CVC seeks PM8217;s role

NEW DELHI, May 19: Chief Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal today shot off a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee o...

NEW DELHI, May 19: Chief Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal today shot off a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on how the lapse of the CVC ordinance has put a question mark on his role in Government. The letter follows two similar missives sent by him on May 4 to Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar and Personnel Secretary B B Tandon.

Vittal says he was forced to seek the Prime Minister8217;s intervention for re-promulgating the ordinance since his earlier letters of protest were ignored. 8220;Parliament is not in session, so their is no legal bar to re-promulgate the ordinance. If you issue it now, the six-month period of the resolution passed by the Government on April 4 will expire in November, and it will get priority when the new Lok Sabha meets.8221;

He added that once the CVC ordinance is in place, legal pressure on Parliament to pass it as a Bill would mount.

On whether the Government would be going beyond its caretaker status with such a re-promulgation, he asserted 8220;there is no problem, it is a Supreme Court order. The Lok Sabha has passed the Bill. They will not go beyond their legal authority.8221;

The CVC admitted in an interview that he had categorically stated in the letter to Vajpayee that by allowing the ordinance to lapse on April 4 the Government was violating the Supreme Court order which gave him supervisory powers over the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate.

8220;Since the CVC lacks legal sanction, even the normal work has virtually come to stop8230;the whole thing can be reduced to a farce,8221; Vittal said, visibly perturbed by the continuing uncertainty over his jurisdiction.

The CVC says that by allowing the ordinance to lapse, the Government has raised questions about his 8220;de facto8221; role in Government as against his 8220;de jure8221; role.

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In the present situation, with the CVC8217;s supervisory powers over the two investigating agencies withdrawn, there were several anti-corruption measures which were ready on file but had not been implemented. For instance, new regulations for curbing corruption in the public sector was lying ready but have been withheld. 8220;I am not issuing the orders since without the ordinance it would be reduced to being a routine order,8221; he says.

Vittal has informed the Prime Minister that as far as his supervision of the CBI is concerned, Section 8 1 of the 1998 CVC Bill empowers him to exercise superintendence over the agency. But the resolution issued by the Government after it failed to get the CVC Bill passed in the last session of Parliament is silent on this.

Vittal says that another major loss was his inability to hold review meetings of CBI cases against three important categories of people: politicians, bureaucrats and public sector officials. After he took over as CVC, he was able to hold only one review meeting.