The Chief Vigilance Officer

Punitive vigilance. Receiving complaints, deciding whether a complaint discloses a vigilance angle, having a preliminary inquiry or investigation made, drafting the charge-sheet, processing the departmental proceeding, and referring the matter to the Commission for advice where the rules require it.

Surveillance and detection. Maintaining the agreed list of officers of doubtful integrity, watching the sensitive areas, and scrutinising the annual property returns that the conduct rules require of every public servant.

Liaison. With the Commission, with the Central Bureau of Investigation, and with the disciplinary authority.

The distinction between a vigilance angle and a mere administrative lapse is where a Chief Vigilance Officer's judgment first bites, and it decides everything downstream. An error of judgment honestly made, however costly, is a departmental matter. An act showing an improper motive, a gratification, or a favour to a person with whom the officer has an interest carries a vigilance angle and starts the machinery in chapter 700.

The weakest joint in the system: dual reporting

The Chief Vigilance Officer reports to two masters.

To the Commission, which supervises vigilance administration under section 8(1)(h), sends him its advice, and expects him to be its officer inside the organisation.

To the head of his own organisation, the Secretary of the Ministry or the Chairman and Managing Director of the public sector undertaking, who is his administrative superior, who writes on his work, who controls his posting, and who is very often the person whose subordinates, and occasionally whose own decisions, are the subject of the vigilance case.

Set the problem out concretely, because that is what makes it an answer rather than a complaint. A Chief Vigilance Officer in a public sector undertaking who recommends a major penalty proceeding against a Director of the same undertaking is asking his own organisation's board to punish one of its own. The Chairman who receives that recommendation is the man on whose report the officer's future depends.

How the system tries to manage it.

Appointment with the Commission's concurrence. Chief Vigilance Officers in the public sector undertakings and in the banks are appointed with the Commission's prior concurrence, and the Commission assesses the candidates for integrity. This takes the choice of the watchdog out of the hands of the watched.

Outside appointment and a fixed tenure. The officer is ordinarily brought in from outside the organisation for a fixed term, so that he has no history in it and no future in it.

The Commission's assessment of his work. The Commission records its own assessment of a Chief Vigilance Officer's performance, which enters his service record beside his organisation's.

And what none of that solves. These are administrative arrangements, revisable by the executive at will, resting on no statute, enforceable by nobody. There is no fixed statutory tenure, no bar on premature repatriation, no protection of the kind sections 5 and 6 give the Commissioners themselves. The institution that supervises vigilance has a charged budget and a Supreme Court reference for its removal; the officer who actually does vigilance has neither.

Where the office sits in the chain

Complaint reaches the Chief Vigilance Officer, or is sent down to him by the Commission.

He decides whether there is a vigilance angle. If not, it goes to the administrative side.

If there is, he causes an inquiry or investigation, ordinarily departmental, or the matter goes to the Central Bureau of Investigation if it discloses a criminal offence.

On the report he forms a view and, in the cases the instructions require, refers it to the Commission for first stage advice: chapter 700.

The disciplinary proceeding runs under the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules or the corresponding rules, with the Chief Vigilance Officer processing it.

On the inquiry officer's report the matter goes back to the Commission for second stage advice.

The disciplinary authority passes the order, which may or may not follow the advice. If it does not, section 17(3) requires the reasons to be recorded in writing and communicated to the Commission.

And the whole of it is aggregated by the Commission under section 18 and published under section 14.

A worked example

A complaint reaches a Ministry alleging that a tender was tailored to one bidder.

The Chief Vigilance Officer examines it and finds that the technical specification was altered after the pre-bid conference in a way that only one firm could meet, and that the file carries no reason for the alteration.

Vigilance angle or not? The alteration itself might be an error of judgment. The absence of any recorded reason, together with the fact that it excluded every competitor, gives it a vigilance angle. He proceeds.

He has an investigation made, obtains the file, and finds that the officer who altered the specification had no authority to do so.

He recommends a major penalty proceeding and, the officer being of a level that requires it, refers the case to the Commission for first stage advice. The Commission advises accordingly.

The Secretary of the Ministry disagrees and wants a minor penalty. Section 17(3) requires him to consider the Commission's advice, and the proviso requires him, on disagreeing, to record his reasons in writing and communicate them to the Commission.

Note the position the Chief Vigilance Officer is now in. His recommendation and the Commission's advice are on one side; his own Secretary is on the other; and the Secretary writes his annual report. That is the dual reporting problem in a single file, and it is the honest answer to why the office needs a statutory footing.

What beginners get wrong

That the Act creates the office. It does not. The Act supervises a vigilance administration whose units it never names.

That the Chief Vigilance Officer is a Commission employee. He is an officer of his own organisation, designated to do vigilance work, whose appointment in the public sector requires the Commission's concurrence.

That he punishes anybody. He processes; the disciplinary authority decides.

That his function is chiefly punitive. The Commission's own position is that preventive vigilance is the larger part of the job.

That the dual reporting is a theoretical difficulty. It is the practical one, and every serious review of the system since the Santhanam Committee has said so.

Quick revision

Not a statutory office. It rests on executive instructions, traceable to the Resolution of 11 February 1964. The Act's hooks are s.8(1)(h) superintendence over vigilance administration, s.18 reports, returns and statements, and s.19 consultation on vigilance rules.

Functions: preventive vigilance (procedures, sensitive posts, rotation, discretion), punitive vigilance (complaints, inquiries, charge-sheets, references for advice), surveillance and detection (agreed list, property returns), liaison with the Commission and the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The threshold he applies: is there a vigilance angle, that is an improper motive, a gratification or a favour, as against an honest error of judgment?

The weakness: dual reporting. He answers to the Commission and to the head of his own organisation, who controls his posting and writes on his work. Managed by appointment with the Commission's concurrence, an outsider on a fixed term, and the Commission's own assessment of his performance; secured by no statute at all.

Test yourself

1. What is a Chief Vigilance Officer, and on what does the office rest? He is an officer of a Ministry, department or public sector organisation designated to handle its vigilance work, and he functions as an extension of the Central Vigilance Commission within that organisation. The office is not created by the Central Vigilance Commission Act 2003, which nowhere uses the expression; it rests on executive instructions traceable to the Government Resolution of 11 February 1964 which set up the Commission on the recommendation of the Santhanam Committee. The Act's connection with the office is indirect: section 8(1)(h) gives the Commission superintendence over the vigilance administration of which he is the working unit, section 18 lets the Commission call for the reports, returns and statements he supplies, and section 19 requires consultation before the rules he administers are made.

2. Describe his functions. They fall into four groups. Preventive vigilance, which is the examination of the organisation's procedures in the areas where corruption is likely, the identification of sensitive posts and the rotation of officers in them, and the tightening of rules that leave discretion undefined. Punitive vigilance, which is the receipt and examination of complaints, the decision whether a complaint carries a vigilance angle, the causing of inquiries and investigations, the drafting of charge-sheets, the processing of departmental proceedings and the reference of cases to the Commission for advice. Surveillance and detection, which includes maintaining the agreed list of officers of doubtful integrity and scrutinising the property returns required by the conduct rules. And liaison with the Commission, with the Central Bureau of Investigation and with the disciplinary authority.

3. What is meant by a vigilance angle and why does it matter? A vigilance angle exists where the act complained of suggests an improper motive, the acceptance of a gratification, or a favour shown to a person in whom the officer has an interest, as distinct from an honest error of judgment however costly. It matters because it is the threshold decision the Chief Vigilance Officer takes at the outset: a case without a vigilance angle is dealt with on the administrative side, while a case with one enters the vigilance machinery of inquiry, reference to the Commission for advice and departmental proceedings.

4. Explain the problem of dual reporting and how the system attempts to meet it. The Chief Vigilance Officer reports to the Commission, which supervises vigilance administration and sends him its advice, and simultaneously to the head of his own organisation, who is his administrative superior, controls his posting and reports on his work, and whose own subordinates or decisions may be the subject of the case. The conflict is structural. The system meets it by requiring the Commission's prior concurrence to the appointment of Chief Vigilance Officers in public sector undertakings and banks, with the Commission assessing integrity; by bringing the officer in from outside the organisation for a fixed term so that he has neither a past nor a future in it; and by having the Commission record its own assessment of his performance. All three are administrative arrangements resting on no statute and revisable by the executive, and none gives him anything comparable to the fixed tenure and protected removal that sections 5 and 6 give the Commissioners.

5. Why is it significant that the office is not statutory? Because it makes the whole operative layer of vigilance in India a creature of executive instruction while only the supervising layer is statutory. The Commission has a fixed term, a charged budget, a Supreme Court reference for removal and a report laid before Parliament; the officer who receives the complaints, decides the vigilance angle, causes the inquiries and processes the proceedings has none of these, and can be repatriated to his parent organisation without any of the safeguards that make an anti-corruption officer able to act against his own superiors. Any serious proposal to strengthen the system therefore begins with putting the office on a statutory footing, and its absence is a fair criticism to make in an answer on the weaknesses of the Central Vigilance Commission.