New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS) The Supreme Court Thursday said that the Central Vigilance Commission was expected to objectively and independently examine the complaints by whistle-blowers against officials and not just act as a post office to forward the complaints to the chief vigilance officer of the department concerned.
"Once they have procedure, they have to follow it" in dealing with the complaints, said a bench of Justice T.S.Thakur, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Prafulla C. Pant pointing out that that CVC can't pass "telegraphic orders".
Saying that the orders passed by the CVC on the complaints by the whistle-blowers has to be a speaking order, the court asked: "What measures you adopt in objectively assessing the complaints."
It further observed that the working of the CVC should be more "effective and transparent".
The court's observations came in the course of the hearing of a PIL by NGO Parivartan seeking protection of the identity of the whistle-blowers including from harassment and discrimination at the hands of those whose acts of misdemeanour they seeks to expose.
"They should come forward if they have problem in manpower and financial resources", the court said as counsel Prashant Bhushan told the court that CVC had just 300 staffers right from the top man to the man at the bottom and suffered both in terms of manpower and financial resources.
Bhushan told the court that given the huge magnitude of the problem, they don't have resources which was effecting their work.
"The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2011 has created an agency which will suffer from twin problem of manpower shortage and financial crunch," he said.
"And justice becomes a casualty," remarked the court as Bhushan said: "It is like courts which don't have adequate funds resulting lack of judges and judicial infrastructure."
"You can kill a body by starving it of funds," he added.
Taking note of the submissions by Bhushan and apparent deficiencies in the working of the act, the court asked him to submit his suggestion to improve its enforcement, as well as to find out if there were similar laws in other countries and their working.
Bhushan will also give suggestions on make effective the supervision of the Central Bureau of Investigation by the CVC. The court gave Bhushan four weeks file his suggestions and three weeks to the central government to respond to them.
Mayank Agarwal caught England flight, can open in Birmingham Test of ENG vs IND series
Opener Mayank Agarwal has caught a flight to England. Mayank shared a photo of himself after boar
Things seem to be changing in the first week of the new year itself and cold has wreaked havoc in
25 IPS officers reached Aamir Khan's house, the actor's team said- 'We are still with him...'
Aamir Khan was in the news for some time due to his film Sitara Zameen Par. He was promoting the
Hotel business halved in Corona's third wave: 24 lakh people lost jobs so far
Amid the third wave of Corona, restaurant owners across the country are seeing a difficult road a
Bigg Boss 19: First wild card entry in 'Bigg Boss 19', this contestant came to rock the show.
'Bigg Boss 19' is surprising its viewers every day with new twists and turns. This season has cre
Urfi Javed, who always sets the internet on fire with her dressing sense, never knows when she wi
Former diplomat Jitendranath Mishra, who was the Indian ambassador to Portugal and Laos, on Sunda
HBSE 12th Result 2025: Jind students top the pass percentage, Nuh at the bottom
Haryana Board of School Education has released the result of class 12th. District Jind topped the
The number of corona infections being found daily in the country has crossed 50 thousand. On Wedn
Continuation of rapid increase in corona patients in the country. On Tuesday, 16,846 new patients
