Some recent startling facts that might help the readers to understand why subsequent Governments were vacillating on the issue of corruption, and why Ombudsman is very important (about 140 countries in the world has it). This para taken from BBC website with slight modifications. Also visit http://prsindia.org for more details
- The Union government has not responded to 236 requests to prosecute public servants on corruption-related charges till the end of 2010. The overwhelming majority of these requests -155 or 66% - were pending for more than three months.
- State governments run by different parties have not fared much better. They have not responded to 84 requests till the end of 2010 of which 13 or 15% were pending for more than three months.
- India's Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is tasked with fighting corruption in the federal government. Between 2005 and 2009, only 6% of the cases in which the agency found corruption were sanctioned for prosecution by the government. The remaining 94% were let off with departmental penalties, some of them minor.
- The powerful Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) is the main investigative agency used by the CVC to probe corruption and misuse of office by government officials. But till the end of 2010, 21% of its key jobs remained vacant, seriously hindering it’s working.
- The criminal justice system is also failing in prosecuting officials charged with corruption. There were nearly 10,000 CBI cases pending in the courts till the end of 2010 - and 23% of these cases had been pending for more than 10 years.
- whistleblowers are facing serious challenge. In 2004, the government empowered the CVC to act on complaints from whistleblowers. Between 2005 and 2009, the CVC received only 1731 complaints from whistleblowers, a paltry annual average of 346.
