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.
Human Rights Week is being celebrated across the world from 10 December. In which voice is being
Language dispute in Bengaluru: The youth who was pressurized to speak Hindi apologized in Kannada
A man who asked an auto driver in Karnataka's capital Bengaluru to speak in Hindi apologized in K
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has spoken after the FIR was lodged against him. He has expressed full
How far the discovery of corona virus vaccine has reached in India?
New Delhi: In search of the corona vaccine in India, scientists and institutions are doing resear
Dunzo Layoffs: Layoffs continue in startup companies, Google-backed Dunzo lays off 3% employees
Now another Indian startup company has resorted to layoffs to reduce costs. Google-backed deliver
After Russia attacked Ukraine, trouble has come on the Indians living there. Thousands of Indian
Indian microblogging platform Koo seems to be benefiting from Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. Ac
Like every year, this year too the biggest film festival i.e. Cannes Fil
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna retired on Tuesday, May 13, and handed over his charge
Shaktikant Das: RBI Governor said on the fall of rupee, we are adopting the policy of zero tolerance
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday that despite the fall, the rupee remains sta
