I have first-hand information…should not be difficult for you to get (it)

Remember the political storm over Central Vigilance Commissioner’s letter to the Prime Minister that senior PSU staff were under pressu...

Remember the political storm over Central Vigilance Commissioner’s letter to the Prime Minister that senior PSU staff were under pressure from their political masters?

As the Opposition stepped up pressure on the Government on this issue—even tossing around names of Ministers and PSU chiefs—both the CVC and the Prime Minister denied that any names were mentioned. Both were right. And yet there is one telling detail that went unreported.

In his letter, a copy of which has been accessed by The Sunday Express, CVC P Shankar clearly lobbed the ball into the Prime Minister’s court.

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‘‘I do not want to quote any particular instance (of pressure),’’ he wrote to Vajpayee (September 9, No CVC/2003/69) ‘‘but it should not be difficult for you to get this information.’’

The letter—which was followed up by a meeting between the PM and the CVC on November 12—is clear. ‘‘I have got first hand information from quite a few top and senior executives in the public sector that there has been a growing tendency on part of the Ministries ‘to bring the executives on line’ through covert and overt threat of vigilance action,’’ Shankar wrote.

Noting how ‘‘you (the Prime Minister) yourself have been voicing concerns over this,’’ Shankar went on to add: ‘‘The Commission has also addressed itself to the rather serious problem of fear and apprehension in the minds of senior executives leading to delay in decison making and even inaction and procrastination…’’

	CVC’s wishlist to PM

			• Set up ‘‘independent directors’’ on boards of PSUs • Insulate Chief Executives from threat to their ‘‘security of tenure and insulate them from motivated complaints from various sources including public persons’’ • Revamp selection process • Objective, meticulous evaluation of performance of top executives Story continues below this ad

Again, the CVC reminded the PM how, ‘‘in our experience over the last one year, the fear of vigilance in the public sector and among the public sector executives themselves, is not just a matter of what the Commission does. A more serious role is that of the Government department or Ministry under whose administrative control the public sector organisation functions.’’

Not only this, the CVC called for reforms in the culture of PSUs if they have to be made more efficient. ‘‘Formal and informal lines of control which the Government departments or Ministries exercise over public sector organisations should also undergo a radical change,’’ he wrote.

On Sept 24, the CVC sent a copy of his letter to the Prime Minister to Cabinet Secretary Kamal Pande. In the covering letter to Pande, the CVC again noted how, ‘‘instances of pressure on executives, abusing, unfortunately, the instrument of vigilance, are on the increase and this would need to be curbed…this is a disturbing trend…I have conveyed to the PM the need for action.’’

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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