A SHAME TO EXICUTIVE AND JUDICIARY

date	Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:08 PM

Justice Kabir perusing an earlier ruling of the apex court said, the underlying object of section 197 CrPC is to enable the authorities to scrutinize the allegations made against a public servant to shield him/her against frivolous, vexatious or false prosecution.

A 38 year old young IAS officer was stripped off the protection of CrPC 197 and sanction was accorded for his prosecution. This means that the authority issued the sanction has scrutinized the allegations against him and found that he misused his authority for doing things not permitted under the law..

The immediate course of action along with the sanction was to place the officer under suspension and proceed against him for violation of conduct rules. How can there be a misuse of power by an officer and no departmental action.

But the officer remained in service for another two decades, promoted later as chief secretary of a state, secretary to a central department and finally at the age of 60 appointed as Central Vigilance Commissioner . The selection of CVC is now annulled by Supreme Court as the selection committee did not appreciated the CV of the candidate in toto and ignored the earlier comments of DoP&A.

The present judgment of SC in CVC case is silent on the inaction of the authority while stripping the protection of CrPC 197 in not taking the mandatory disciplinary action along with the sanction for twenty two years. In that case he could have established his innocence or guilt years back. The court that accepted the case in file also failed to ascertain this making our judiciary a laughing stock

This has resulted in promoting an officer of alleged corruption to highest post of CVC and an embarrassing legal decision