Anyone (TI) can go for PIL.
________________________________ From: VB Singh <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, 19 February, 2010 10:13:25 PM Subject: [bm] Netas stopped CBI from acting against 162 corrupt babus Following new item on paga 11 of TOI dated 20.01.2010 (Mumbai Edition) is worth reading to understand the root cause of corruption prevailing in country and eating the very social fabrics of society. Do we not require a mechanism to hold the Netas responsible for corruption who stop action against the corrupts? Regards, VB Singh Netas stopped CBI from acting against 162 corrupt babus Kartikeya I TNN Mumbai: The country's premier investigating agency—the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)—was unable to proceed against as many as 162 bureaucrats named in corruption cases because their political masters refused to oblige the CBI with a sanction order to do so. Details of cases awaiting government nod until October 31, 2009 show that 11 of these cases were against senior officers of the rank of joint secretary level and above. Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act has come to the rescue of these tainted babus. It states that a civil servant can be prosecuted only after a sanction order is given by the concerned government. Until that happens, the CBI cannot proceed against the officer in a court of law. In October 2009, 142 corruption cases were waiting for sanction orders from the central government while in 20 cases, the CBI was awaiting a response from various state governments. This included 15 graft cases registered against a single IAS officer of the Union Territory cadre. The officer from the 1984 batch had a series of cases registered against him since 2007 but in all of them, the CBI was awaiting orders from the central government. The philosophy behind the need to obtain a mandatory sanction order before prosecuting an officer is to protect civil servants from unnecessarily being dragged into false criminal proceedings. "However, the provision is often misused,'' said former IPS officer and lawyer Y P Singh. "The CBI cannot file a chargesheet without the government saying yes,'' Singh said. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had said that higher courts don't need to wait for a government nod before ordering a CBI inquiry into sensitive matters. But a sanction order remains a must. Legal experts say that the only way out of the situation is to allow some sort of a mechanism, where people can make a judicial appeal against the netas' reluctance to prosecute corrupt public servants. The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/
