PIL: Implement vigilance report

Forum for Good Governance has moved a PIL in the High Court challenging the action of Telangana government in not making any efforts to either vet the recommendations of the Vigilance Commission or place the reports along with their action taken reports before the state legislature.

The Forum, represented by its secretary M. Padmanabha Reddy, moved the PIL stating that Vigilance Commission (VC) is an independent advisory body specially formed to deal with prevention of corruption among public servants.

He told the court that after an inquiry into a transaction in which any public servant is suspected to have acted in a corrupt manner the reports of the Vigilance Commission are sent to the general administration department with its remarks. The state government takes the reports as an advisory and has the discretion whether to accept or reject the report.

He told the court that in most of the reports the commission had recommended serious action against corrupt government officials who were involved in serious embezzlement of government funds causing loss to the state's exchequer.

He contended that if no action was taken on the reports, the purpose of setting up the Vigilance Commission would get defeated.

He told the court that, as per information sought under the RTI Act, the last report placed before the state legislature was for 199596. Vigilance reports for the years 2014-15 and 2015-16 were under examination for placing them before the Telangana state Legislative Assembly, he said.

The petitioner alleged that the government was not placing the commission reports before the state legislature, to protect tainted government officials.

He urged that the court direct the government to place all pending reports of the Vigilance Commission along with action taken reports, particularly for the year 2014-15 and 2015-16, before the state legislature in the next Assembly session for discussion and action.