NEW DELHI: AS many as 928 government and public sector unit employees were sacked and 5,461 employees handed out major penalties, while 11,711 received minor penalties in 2015 for corruption and misconduct. An IPS officer, a managing director of the Hotel Corporation of India and a general manager of Central Bank of India were among the 928 babus sacked last year.
According to a Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report, during 2015, punitive action was taken in 17,172 cases (for all categories of officers). A chief engineer of the Ministry of Defence and two deputy general managers of the Indian Overseas Bank were compulsorily retired from service.
In seven cases, deterrent action was taken against senior officers, including three IAS, one IPS and three IRS officers, and sanction of prosecution was granted.“In pursuance to the Commission’s advice, the competent authorities in various organisations issued sanction for prosecution against 132 public servants, major penalties have been imposed on 1,832 public servants and minor penalties on 1,346 during 2015,” said the CVC report. In 2015, the highest number of punishments, including administrative action against public servants, was in the railways (602 officers), State Bank of India (217 officers), Punjab National Bank (169 officers) and Department of Telecom (134 officers). The railways issued sanction for prosecution in 16 cases, Central Board of Excise and Customs in 15 cases and Punjab National Bank in 10 cases. During 2015, a total of 4,355 cases were received and 1,751 brought forward from the previous year. The commission disposed of 4,604 cases - leaving a pendency of 1,502 cases at the end of the year.
The CVC observed there was a delay in corruption cases, saying it takes about eight years to finalise a major vigilance case from the date of occurrence of irregularity. “The Commission noted that detection of irregularity and its investigation takes on average more than two years each - total period of more than 4 years, which is a significant portion of the entire delay period,” said the CVC report.