Latest News Related to Banking are as follows
In a significant judgment expanding the scope of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Supreme Court brought all private bank employees within the ambit of the anti-graft law, which had so far been applied only against corrupt government officials.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Anti-graft-Act-covers-all-pvt-bank-staff-too-SC/articleshow/51114610.cms
Swords of Recapitalisation hangs on Government
India’s public-sector banks (PSBs) are sitting on more than Rs 7 lakh crore of stressed assets, defined as the total of non-performing assets (NPAs) and restructured assets. Moreover this stock of stressed debt is likely to lead to defaults that would force Rconstruction Companies or to proposed Bad bak , which would damage bank profitability and erode bank net worth. This is a bad news not only for banks but also for Government of India.
It is because government is already facing a challenge to reduce fiscal deficit . Fiscal deficit arises when total of expenditure exceeds total of revenues and receipts and non-debt capital receipts . If health of bank further deteriorates, government will need to infuse more and more capital to keep banks safe , risk-free and basleIII compliant. But the fact is that government find it very difficult to increase revenue whereas there is huge pressure for more and more increase in expnditure.
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/budget-banking-npa-psb-rbi/
NPAs: Parliamentary panel faults RBI, banks-LiveMint-25.02.2016
The standing committee on finance says a surge in bad loans raised questions about the credibility of the systems in place to deal with the issue
A parliamentary panel on expressed dissatisfaction over the management of bad loans by the central bank and commercial banks. It said that surge in non-performing assets (NPAs) raised questions about the credibility of the systems in place to deal with the issue.
The committee noted with “deep concern” that in spite of various measures taken by the government and RBI, “the NPA problem confronting the financial sector and threatening the stability of the banking system seems far from over”.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/SFchde3tPbixFOaDsJhKbI/NPAs-Parliamentary-panel-faults-RBI-banks.html
Standard Chartered Bank posts first global loss in 26 years on $1.3bn India hit-Times of India 25.02.2016
StanChart, which is a lender to large corporate groups with exposure to commodities (like Essar), has reported a $981-million (Rs 6,728-crore) loss from its operations in India, down from a profit of $561 million in 2014. This is the biggest ever loss posted by a bank in India.
Why Raghuram Rajan's NPA move may either bring Indian banking to life, or push it into a coma
Matters have come to such a head that the Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan's zeal to clear the mess that's hobbling the economy by March 2017 has divided the house in the middle. His surgery may either bring Indian banking back to life, or push it into coma
It is observed by a banker that companies have operating profits which are much lower than what are needed to cover their interest, which means that they are still getting loans from banks to service their interest and keep their loans alive. So, we think that the RBI has not been stringent enough
Governor's advocacy of surgery may appear to be an option, but it comes with some immediate costs. Banks are reporting record losses and are on course to record more in the coming quarters as they race to complete the exercise by March 2017. The Indian industry, which is not used to this kind of shock treatment, is resisting it. Bankers say public perception is turning adverse.
Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/51114936.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
My views of news of merger of banks
Government of India through various Finance Ministers has always put thrust on merger and acquisition of banks to save them from probable disaster. This is not new suggestion by current Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley but it has been suggested several times by FMs during last three decades .
In my view , merger of banks is not at all the permanent solution to cure the critical health of PSU banks . Health of banks has been deteriorating year after year only due to ill-motivated policies of the government and due to bad execution of good policies by bankers in nexus with bad borrowers and bad politicians.
Ruling class never took any serious step to stop rise in bad assets , rather they always added more and more bad assets to gain political advantage for their respective parties. PSU banks have been exploited by almost of past governments.
Present government and present Governor RBI are at least trying their best to clean the balance sheet of PSU banks and they have been trying to know the hidden volume of bad assets so that at least from now onwards remedial steps may be taken .
Solution lies in improvement of quality of recruitment of officer in banks, improvement of promotion process to stop reign of bribery and flattery , stopping political leaders who exploit bank for their vote bank, stopping practice of loan waiver, stopping practice of government in forcing banks to promote compromise settlement, stopping loan mela culture, improving efficiency of judiciary in dealing with cases of banks related to recovery and improving the quality of processing of loans by stopping target oriented lending.
How to deal with NPA and how to reduce NPA are explained below in brief:---
By improving following key points bank may contain creation of NPA to a great extent.
I am submitting below copy of my blog which I wrote in the year 2009 link of which is as below
http://www.caclubindia.com/forum/why-merger-of-banks-is-needed-56385.asp
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/51114936.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
My views of news of merger of banks
Government of India through various Finance Ministers has always put thrust on merger and acquisition of banks to save them from probable disaster. This is not new suggestion by current Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley but it has been suggested several times by FMs during last three decades .
In my view , merger of banks is not at all the permanent solution to cure the critical health of PSU banks . Health of banks has been deteriorating year after year only due to ill-motivated policies of the government and due to bad execution of good policies by bankers in nexus with bad borrowers and bad politicians.
Ruling class never took any serious step to stop rise in bad assets , rather they always added more and more bad assets to gain political advantage for their respective parties. PSU banks have been exploited by almost of past governments.
Present government and present Governor RBI are at least trying their best to clean the balance sheet of PSU banks and they have been trying to know the hidden volume of bad assets so that at least from now onwards remedial steps may be taken .
Solution lies in improvement of quality of recruitment of officer in banks, improvement of promotion process to stop reign of bribery and flattery , stopping political leaders who exploit bank for their vote bank, stopping practice of loan waiver, stopping practice of government in forcing banks to promote compromise settlement, stopping loan mela culture, improving efficiency of judiciary in dealing with cases of banks related to recovery and improving the quality of processing of loans by stopping target oriented lending.
How to deal with NPA and how to reduce NPA are explained below in brief:---
By improving following key points bank may contain creation of NPA to a great extent.
Improvement of Quality of manpower, their integrity, their skill, knowledge about product, ability to understand capability, character and potential of loan seeker
Quality of management: Proper motivation, by promotion and by incentives
Proper training, allotment of work as per potential and as per will of the employees,
By Avoiding target imposition, avoid loan melas, do not build pressure for credit growth in time frame fixed arbitrarily by bosses.
Quality of politics
Building pressure for financing in various government schemes, pressure for compromise settlement, write off of bad loans, for infrastructure projects, power distributing companies, power manufacturing companies etc where profit and repaying capacity of the project is not guaranteed.
In case account goes bad due to abnormal or natural reasons, government should support them from outside from a different body but not through bank, because it sends wrong message to good borrowers.
Strong administrative support to banks to deal with willful defaulters,
Quick legal action, disposal of cases in time bound programme, advising courts and tribunals to treat banks money as government money and punish those who do not side banks in nexus with defaulters
Proper manpower support to courts and tribunals,
Of audit and inspection, vigilance, risk management, loan assessment should be kept away from all outside influences and should not be victimized in way of transfer and rejection in promotions.
Other agencies Such as CA, Valuers, Legal experts, architects who cheat bank or who submit false and manipulated report should be punished.
Even internal audit teams are not free to write freely about a branch. External auditors, CAs, Rating agencies all are victim of illegal gifts and obligations offered by evil minded borrowers.
Adequate manpower and adequate time are not provided to auditors. They selected as per whims of bosses even if the person concerned is not talented
CAs for Concurrent audit or statutory audit are selected by evil bankers only.
Loan and charity cannot run together, from same platform
Banks have to become either a social welfare entity or totally a commercial entity, both cannot run together.
Private Banks work under totally a different and independent framework whereas PSU banks are subjected to several social welfare schemes.
I am submitting below copy of my blog which I wrote in the year 2009 link of which is as below
http://www.caclubindia.com/forum/why-merger-of-banks-is-needed-56385.asp
Full text of my blog is as follows:
Central Government has been building pressure on banks to make best efforts for merger and acquisition. But I am unable to understand the motive behind it in Indian perspective. Finance Minister has said that through consolidation, financial powers of banks will improve and they will not only be able to augment efficiency and help in GDP growth but also get success in competing with International big banks.
Here the million dollar question arises whether Late Indira Gandhi had nationalized banks to compete with International banks, whether banks are meant to extend credit in thousands of crores to a few hundred merchants or manufacturers only?
Have government forgotten the social objective of banks completely?
Is it possible for a government to survive by discarding the interest of common men, farmers, small traders in India?
Is it necessary for India to have bigger banks to extend credit to farmers and small traders who together constitutes 95% of population and without whose support even economic viability of large projects would be at stake?
It is important to mention here that there is sharp rise in loan portfolio or visible growth in advances of banks in general is not due to financing made by banks to small traders and farmers but only due to bulk financing made to big corporate houses, to real estate developers and to infra structure developers.
Does any one in the government or in RBI mean that by merger and enhancing powers of banks, there will be equitable GDP growth in country like India?
Even in America where big banks are many, one out of every seven Americans starves and struggle for earning their bread and butter for at least survival. In India the position is worse than that in USA. In India nine out of every ten Indians are unable to earn sufficient money even for respectful living. Considerable large proportion of Indian population is suffering from mal-nutrition; they die of curable diseases in want of proper medical assistance and they remain unemployed in want of adequate opportunities. This is India where even federal structure of the country is at stake due to largely growing unemployment and where person like Raj Thakre has been trying hard to disallow Non-marathi to seek employment in Maharashtra and Shiv Raj Chouhan CM says he would not employment to Biharis and North Indian in the state of MP. Besides in majority of villages, small towns and cities there is no proper sanitation facilities, acute scarcity of water and electricity, crisis for medical treatment and what not. This is why I reiterate that Indian environment is different from other developed nations and hence need unique treatment.
It is worthwhile to add here that USA government have realized after fall of big banks and financial Institution during last year that management of big banks is very difficult compared to smaller ones. Still there are about 8000 smaller banks functioning in USA to serve common men. It is also true that 125 banks became bankrupt or closed their shutters during the current year in USA.
If we talk of India we have less than 30 public sector banks and they are said to be in better health position. They are well scattered in every nook and corner of the country to serve Indians in general. They have to be encouraged to extend maximum help to small borrowers.They cannot extend any better help to poor person after merger of banks.Then what is the need of merger and acquisition? Why is government bent upon merger Need of the hour is to make them able to cater to the needs of common men.
Even if government feels the necessity of having large banks with huge capital to compete with foreign banks, they can choose to have one or two like SBI or PNB (after merger of SBI with associate banks I think capital size of SBI will be comparable with their foreign counterparts and similarly after merger of PNB with some suitable bank),At least other banks should be left untouched to serve common men and forget big projects, bulk financing, corporate borrowers completely and concentrate only on small and mid size borrowers i.e. credit upto ten lacs.
Even if we leave aside the social objective,it is not commercially proposition to build pressure (frequent request by FM or RBI is enough to build pressure) on banks to go for merger and acquisition especially when government have granted economic freedom to individual banks in the era of economic reformation , liberalization and globalization When need will arise banks will themselves strive hard to grow bigger to survive. As of now banks in India are said to be safer than foreign banks. Even government has admitted it repeatedly.
Inspite of all,if government still consider it better to go for merger , I would like to suggest our Finance Minister to merge all PSBs including SBI and make them one entity like Income Tax department and other departments of Government of India so that there be no unwarranted interest rate war, no case of multiple financing, no case of take over at the cost of bank’s interest and no unhealthy competition as prevalent in banking industry. There will be unified effort to recover the money from recalcitrant borrowers. Banks will be able to check money laundering in a better way .People will not get opportunity to park their black money in different branches of different banks.
Need of the hour is to strengthen the existing structure of banks, make them more and more efficient and enthusiastic. Government should make efforts for repayment of loan and for this purpose make water tight laws to ensure cent percent recovery of loan from willful defaulters so that proportion of dead money in bank’s balance sheet comes down and they can afford and generate will to make finance to common men. Present scenario is that branch manager of every bank’s branch is afraid of extending credit to small borrowers in fear of account going bad and lastly added to Non Performing Asset. Need of the hour is to avoid political intervention in banking affairs and to resort to healthy norms for financing without any fear of target achievement. To add fuel to fire every banks are suffering from staff shortage and as a consequence there is no monitoring on existing borrowal accounts and gradually service quality in banks at many branches is deteriorating in want of adequate staff. Banks are even unable to redeploy the existing surplus staff at Metro branches due to protest from powerful employees union.
Last but not the least; bitter truth is that big business houses are getting all sorts of help from the government, from the banks and from all corners but all at the cost of poor and middle family. Rich business houses are producing, hoarding and realizing maximum profit on their products and it will not exaggeration to say that the present trend of rising price is caused by these profit makers only. Government has been making promises and promises to control price, but always fail on this front because they have given undue freedom and undue privileges to these business houses. I hope government will make all best efforts to give relief to general mass who are subjected to unbearable pain on account of sharp price rise in all commodities without proportionate rise in their monthly income.
India is said to be suffering from naxalism due to increasing poverty and due to the fact that they are denied their legitimate right and they are even deprived of justice in proper time. Can merger and acquisition by banks help in ameliorating their problems of poverty ridden Indians? I would like to draw the attention of learned FM and PM that late Indira Gandhi (Congress Party) had nationalized banks because private banks were hesitant to extend credit to common men, villagers were deprived of banking facilities and common men was afraid of even entering in to bank. Private Banks were exploiting not only staff working in the banks but were also exploiting business houses. It will not be exaggeration to predict and say that the same Congress Party under the banner of UPA is dragging banking industry in pre-nationalization era.
Please keep in mind that during reformation era 23 banks were forcefully merged to bigger banks by government of India because they succumbed to malady and irregularity they accumulated, and not because they were small banks. Giant banks, Lehman Brothers, AIG failed not because they were big but they followed wrong policies and committed misadventure in delivery of credit and in making investments.
Here the million dollar question arises whether Late Indira Gandhi had nationalized banks to compete with International banks, whether banks are meant to extend credit in thousands of crores to a few hundred merchants or manufacturers only?
Have government forgotten the social objective of banks completely?
Is it possible for a government to survive by discarding the interest of common men, farmers, small traders in India?
Is it necessary for India to have bigger banks to extend credit to farmers and small traders who together constitutes 95% of population and without whose support even economic viability of large projects would be at stake?
It is important to mention here that there is sharp rise in loan portfolio or visible growth in advances of banks in general is not due to financing made by banks to small traders and farmers but only due to bulk financing made to big corporate houses, to real estate developers and to infra structure developers.
Does any one in the government or in RBI mean that by merger and enhancing powers of banks, there will be equitable GDP growth in country like India?
Even in America where big banks are many, one out of every seven Americans starves and struggle for earning their bread and butter for at least survival. In India the position is worse than that in USA. In India nine out of every ten Indians are unable to earn sufficient money even for respectful living. Considerable large proportion of Indian population is suffering from mal-nutrition; they die of curable diseases in want of proper medical assistance and they remain unemployed in want of adequate opportunities. This is India where even federal structure of the country is at stake due to largely growing unemployment and where person like Raj Thakre has been trying hard to disallow Non-marathi to seek employment in Maharashtra and Shiv Raj Chouhan CM says he would not employment to Biharis and North Indian in the state of MP. Besides in majority of villages, small towns and cities there is no proper sanitation facilities, acute scarcity of water and electricity, crisis for medical treatment and what not. This is why I reiterate that Indian environment is different from other developed nations and hence need unique treatment.
It is worthwhile to add here that USA government have realized after fall of big banks and financial Institution during last year that management of big banks is very difficult compared to smaller ones. Still there are about 8000 smaller banks functioning in USA to serve common men. It is also true that 125 banks became bankrupt or closed their shutters during the current year in USA.
If we talk of India we have less than 30 public sector banks and they are said to be in better health position. They are well scattered in every nook and corner of the country to serve Indians in general. They have to be encouraged to extend maximum help to small borrowers.They cannot extend any better help to poor person after merger of banks.Then what is the need of merger and acquisition? Why is government bent upon merger Need of the hour is to make them able to cater to the needs of common men.
Even if government feels the necessity of having large banks with huge capital to compete with foreign banks, they can choose to have one or two like SBI or PNB (after merger of SBI with associate banks I think capital size of SBI will be comparable with their foreign counterparts and similarly after merger of PNB with some suitable bank),At least other banks should be left untouched to serve common men and forget big projects, bulk financing, corporate borrowers completely and concentrate only on small and mid size borrowers i.e. credit upto ten lacs.
Even if we leave aside the social objective,it is not commercially proposition to build pressure (frequent request by FM or RBI is enough to build pressure) on banks to go for merger and acquisition especially when government have granted economic freedom to individual banks in the era of economic reformation , liberalization and globalization When need will arise banks will themselves strive hard to grow bigger to survive. As of now banks in India are said to be safer than foreign banks. Even government has admitted it repeatedly.
Inspite of all,if government still consider it better to go for merger , I would like to suggest our Finance Minister to merge all PSBs including SBI and make them one entity like Income Tax department and other departments of Government of India so that there be no unwarranted interest rate war, no case of multiple financing, no case of take over at the cost of bank’s interest and no unhealthy competition as prevalent in banking industry. There will be unified effort to recover the money from recalcitrant borrowers. Banks will be able to check money laundering in a better way .People will not get opportunity to park their black money in different branches of different banks.
Need of the hour is to strengthen the existing structure of banks, make them more and more efficient and enthusiastic. Government should make efforts for repayment of loan and for this purpose make water tight laws to ensure cent percent recovery of loan from willful defaulters so that proportion of dead money in bank’s balance sheet comes down and they can afford and generate will to make finance to common men. Present scenario is that branch manager of every bank’s branch is afraid of extending credit to small borrowers in fear of account going bad and lastly added to Non Performing Asset. Need of the hour is to avoid political intervention in banking affairs and to resort to healthy norms for financing without any fear of target achievement. To add fuel to fire every banks are suffering from staff shortage and as a consequence there is no monitoring on existing borrowal accounts and gradually service quality in banks at many branches is deteriorating in want of adequate staff. Banks are even unable to redeploy the existing surplus staff at Metro branches due to protest from powerful employees union.
Last but not the least; bitter truth is that big business houses are getting all sorts of help from the government, from the banks and from all corners but all at the cost of poor and middle family. Rich business houses are producing, hoarding and realizing maximum profit on their products and it will not exaggeration to say that the present trend of rising price is caused by these profit makers only. Government has been making promises and promises to control price, but always fail on this front because they have given undue freedom and undue privileges to these business houses. I hope government will make all best efforts to give relief to general mass who are subjected to unbearable pain on account of sharp price rise in all commodities without proportionate rise in their monthly income.
India is said to be suffering from naxalism due to increasing poverty and due to the fact that they are denied their legitimate right and they are even deprived of justice in proper time. Can merger and acquisition by banks help in ameliorating their problems of poverty ridden Indians? I would like to draw the attention of learned FM and PM that late Indira Gandhi (Congress Party) had nationalized banks because private banks were hesitant to extend credit to common men, villagers were deprived of banking facilities and common men was afraid of even entering in to bank. Private Banks were exploiting not only staff working in the banks but were also exploiting business houses. It will not be exaggeration to predict and say that the same Congress Party under the banner of UPA is dragging banking industry in pre-nationalization era.
Please keep in mind that during reformation era 23 banks were forcefully merged to bigger banks by government of India because they succumbed to malady and irregularity they accumulated, and not because they were small banks. Giant banks, Lehman Brothers, AIG failed not because they were big but they followed wrong policies and committed misadventure in delivery of credit and in making investments.
In India I doubt the honesty and integrity of government in their efforts for merger, acquisition and consolidation of banks because they know the quantum of malady and bad assets hidden behind the rosy balance sheets of PSBs.Otherwise there is no reason for providing capital infusion to various weak banks from time to time. It is their political agenda to save the banks from exposure of their reality when the misdeeds increases to such a large extent that it punctures the tyre of running banks. They are trying to divert the attention of public from inherent weaknesses of PSBs and this is why they are not agreeable to respectable wage revision of bank employees even after two year long dialogue with union leaders. Exodus of talented employees and non entry of well qualified person in PSB banks is also a vital reason behind growing weakness of Banks. On the contrary private banks like ICICI and HDFC banks have grown to such a large extent in last 15 years of their existence that even 100 year old PSBs are facing challenge for survival.
Further any merger of banks may cause more chaos and confusion that solve any problem. Different banks have different identity and its unique geographical concentration or expansion and hence merger of two banks with different characteristics and different process of promotions and transfers will create more conflicts, more industrial disturbance and public grievance. There are banks where management gives ten promotions in 30 years and on the contrary there are banks where even one promotion is not given in 30 years. Some employees are south centered and some are confined to Metro Branches in their entire tenure in banks. There are various points of conflicts which banks have to settle before contemplating acquisition and mergers.
Danendra Jain
My other blogs on issue of merger are given in following links
http://importantbankingnews2.blogspot.in/2014/12/why-bank-union-suggest-merger-of-failed.html
http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2015/04/merger-and-consolidation-of-banks-and.html
http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2014/07/pros-and-cons-of-bank-mergers.html
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The Government has taken several steps for quick disposal of pending cases. DoPT conducts quarterly meeting with CVC, CBI and other Central Government Ministries to monitor pending cases of sanction for prosecution and check delay in sanction for prosecution. A Committee chaired by Secretary (DoPT) also monitors the status of cases of sanction for prosecution on quarterly basis and takes necessary steps to resolve delayed cases expeditiously.
In respect of pending disciplinary cases in CVC, the Commission has taken up with the individual Chief Vigilance Officers (CVO) of the Ministries/ Departments/ Organizations concerned on the need for expeditious finalization of disciplinary proceedings. CVC is also monitoring the pendency of disciplinary cases by sending alerts through SMSs and E-mail to the concerned CVOs.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Dr.Swami Sakshiji Maharaj in the Lok Sabha today.
The Committee in its report has recommended continuation of some posts in existing level, upgradation/ downgradation/ clubbing/ additional charge of some posts based on inputs received from various Ministries/ Departments and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
At present 151 posts of CVOs in CPSEs and other organizations falling under various Ministries/ Departments are filled by DoPT. The CVOs in CPSEs etc. are appointed after taking concurrence of CVC and the concerned Administrative Ministry of the CPSEs/ concerned organizations and with the approval of the Competent Authority. Whenever any situation arises where a vacancy of CVO cannot be filled up due to non-availability of suitable officers or any other exigencies, such posts of CVOs are operated on additional charge basis, till the time a regular CVO is posted, for smooth functioning of vigilance administration.
As and when a proposal for appointment of CVO is received from Ministries/ Departments, expeditious action is taken to fill up the vacancy.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri K.N.Ramachandran in the Lok Sabha today.
In order to avoid delay in processing of such proposals due to procedural infirmities/ shortcomings/discrepancies in the proposals, DoP&T has switched over to Single Window System w.e.f. 01.08.2014 for accepting the proposals as per order No. 142/4/2012-AVD.I dated 28.07.2014. DoPT also conducts quarterly meeting with Central Vigilance Commission, Central Bureau of Investigation & other Central Government Ministries to monitor pending cases of sanction for prosecution and check delay in sanction for prosecution. Government has sanctioned 92 additional Special Courts across the country to dispose of prevention of corruption act cases expeditiously. Of these, 86 Courts have become functional.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Prataprao Jadhav and Shri Ram Tahal Choudhary in the Lok Sabha today.
Danendra Jain
My other blogs on issue of merger are given in following links
http://importantbankingnews2.blogspot.in/2014/12/why-bank-union-suggest-merger-of-failed.html
http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2015/04/merger-and-consolidation-of-banks-and.html
http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2014/07/pros-and-cons-of-bank-mergers.html
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Corruption cases pending in CVC
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) does not maintain its data State-wise. However as per available information on 31.01.2016, a total of 589 cases are pending for examination in the CVC. In addition, in 35 cases comments on CBI investigation reports are awaited from the Departments/ Organizations and in 953 cases further clarifications are awaited from the Departments/ Organizations. Further, during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 a total of 4801, 5867 and 4604 cases respectively were disposed-off by CVC. The Government has taken several steps for quick disposal of pending cases. DoPT conducts quarterly meeting with CVC, CBI and other Central Government Ministries to monitor pending cases of sanction for prosecution and check delay in sanction for prosecution. A Committee chaired by Secretary (DoPT) also monitors the status of cases of sanction for prosecution on quarterly basis and takes necessary steps to resolve delayed cases expeditiously.
In respect of pending disciplinary cases in CVC, the Commission has taken up with the individual Chief Vigilance Officers (CVO) of the Ministries/ Departments/ Organizations concerned on the need for expeditious finalization of disciplinary proceedings. CVC is also monitoring the pendency of disciplinary cases by sending alerts through SMSs and E-mail to the concerned CVOs.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Dr.Swami Sakshiji Maharaj in the Lok Sabha today.
Reducing Chief Vigilance Officers
The Government has constituted a Committee, under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to take a holistic view and submit a report that recommends reassessment of Chief Vigilance Officers (CVO) positions in Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) and other organizations under Ministries/ Departments and rationalization of pay and allowances of CVOs. The Committee in its report has recommended continuation of some posts in existing level, upgradation/ downgradation/ clubbing/ additional charge of some posts based on inputs received from various Ministries/ Departments and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
At present 151 posts of CVOs in CPSEs and other organizations falling under various Ministries/ Departments are filled by DoPT. The CVOs in CPSEs etc. are appointed after taking concurrence of CVC and the concerned Administrative Ministry of the CPSEs/ concerned organizations and with the approval of the Competent Authority. Whenever any situation arises where a vacancy of CVO cannot be filled up due to non-availability of suitable officers or any other exigencies, such posts of CVOs are operated on additional charge basis, till the time a regular CVO is posted, for smooth functioning of vigilance administration.
As and when a proposal for appointment of CVO is received from Ministries/ Departments, expeditious action is taken to fill up the vacancy.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri K.N.Ramachandran in the Lok Sabha today.
Sanction for prosecution
The Supreme Court of India, vide its judgement dated 18th December,1997 in the case of Vineet Narain Vs Union of India, directed that “ time limit of three months for grant of sanction for prosecution must be strictly adhered to. However, additional time of one month may be allowed where consultation is required with the Attorney General (AG) or any law Officer in the AG’s office”. Accordingly, instructions have been issued from time to time to all Ministries/Departments to strictly abide by the orders of the Supreme Court. It is sometimes not possible to adhere to this time limit. The delay which occurs in the sanctioning of prosecution is mostly on account of detailed scrutiny and analysis of voluminous case records and evidence, consultation with Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), State Governments and other agencies, and sometimes non-availability of relevant documentary evidence. In order to avoid delay in processing of such proposals due to procedural infirmities/ shortcomings/discrepancies in the proposals, DoP&T has switched over to Single Window System w.e.f. 01.08.2014 for accepting the proposals as per order No. 142/4/2012-AVD.I dated 28.07.2014. DoPT also conducts quarterly meeting with Central Vigilance Commission, Central Bureau of Investigation & other Central Government Ministries to monitor pending cases of sanction for prosecution and check delay in sanction for prosecution. Government has sanctioned 92 additional Special Courts across the country to dispose of prevention of corruption act cases expeditiously. Of these, 86 Courts have become functional.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Prataprao Jadhav and Shri Ram Tahal Choudhary in the Lok Sabha today.
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