Kejriwal to speed up departmental graft probe

The Arvind Kejriwal government is looking to expand its team of eight bureaucrats for holding speedy departmental  vigilance inquiries by engaging retired officials to weeding out corruption.

The retired officials’ would assist the eight officials for conducting inquiries.  Before being hired, the retired officials would be subjected to an integrity check to ensure that they themselves do not have a tainted past, said an official.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has chalked out an elaborate plan to ensure that there are no loopholes which allow corruption in the administration.

After the CBI arrested Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajendra Kumar earlier this week, many functionaries in the government want the Chief Minister to undo the harm caused by the development by highlight the anti-corruption measures proposed by him.

An official said work on the proposal on hiring retired officials-  above the rank of deputy secretaries and aged less than 65 years designating them as Inquiry Officers has been on since April when the AAP government decided to strengthen the mechanism to handle corruption complaints.

Eight serving IAS and DANICS officers were appointed as special Vigilance Commissioners for speedy disposal of complaints that called for disciplinary proceedings.

Following the norms suggested by the Central Vigilance Commission, the AAP government also set up a special panel to hand corruption complaints and speed up departmental inquiries in the AAP departments.

The retired bureaucrats to be hired as Inquiry Officers would be expected to submit their reports within 90 days.

As per the Vigilance Department, a retired officer would be hired for conducting inquiry only if he was not a witness or a complainant in the matter to be inquired into.

Any acquaintance or relation with a serving official facing corruption complaint would bar the Inquiry Officer from holding a probe.

Kejriwal earlier warned officials said departmental inquiries would no more be allowed to be deliberately delay or kept pending – a trend usually seen in the government where a tainted official manages to influence an Inquiry
Officer.