NEW DELHI, Aug 24: Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral has directed that the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) request for official concurrence to start probe against public servants and to sanction prosecution be cleared within 60 days.

As a first measure towards his fight against corruption in the government, Gujral has directed the ministries, departments, boards and public sector undertakings that they should not ``sit over files'' sent to them by the prosecuting agencies against the corrupt beyond 60 days.

The Prime Minister who will be unfolding his plan to fight corruption while addressing a meeting of heads of the CBI, Enforcement, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, State Vigilance Bureaus and others on September 4-5, has conveyed in no uncertain terms that he would take stern action against those who delay action against the corrupt on ``flimsy grounds.''Gujral, during his meeting with N N Vohra, Principal Secretary in the PMO, Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramanian, CBI Director R C Sharma and others earlier this week, disclosed that he intended to call a meeting of the Chief Ministers on the specific issue of fighting rampant corruption.

Gujral fixed the 60 days outer limit for sanctioning or rejecting the permission when it was brought to his notice that as many as 166 requests of the CBI are pending with the ministries and departments of the Central Government itself for years together. In a few cases the requests are pending for more than eight years.

A shocked Prime Minister directed Vohra to ensure that prompt action is taken in the matter and monitoring be done at his level in this regard. He was also told that majority of cases relate to the banking sector where the Finance Ministry has been dragging its feet.

The need to amend the Single Point Order governing the sanction/rejection of permission also came up for a discussion. The CBI has to seek concurrence of the secretary of a ministry before initiating any action against officers of the rank of a joint secretary and above or board-level appointees in public sector units.

So far, there is no time-frame for grant of such requests although the sanction to prosecute a public servant was a statutory requirement under Sections 197 of the CrPC and Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.The issue of non-cooperation by the state governments also cropped at the meeting. The Cabinet Secretary has held three rounds of talks in this regard.

It was pointed out that the state governments often withdraw sanction given after change of guard although the Supreme Court had ruled that consent once granted in a case could not be withdrawn.

Such incidents have hampered investigations even in the case of prosecution of a public servant of a state like that against Narbahadur Bhandari (which was delayed by almost a decade as the state government had withdrawn the consent to investigate charges against him twice).

At the meeting, the CBI chief told his officers that the Prime Minister had directed that prosecution should not be delayed on account of sanction from the concerned ministry/department.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.