Chapter 18 of CVC Manual is exclusively devoted to describing he role of the Chief Vigilance Officers. The chapter consists of 11 pages and 20 paragraphs. Part of these guidelines are summarised in the Project "Crime & Punishment" on this web-site in the chapter Vigilance Units in Ministries/Departments/Public Undertakings-Role of Chief Vigilance Officers. CVC is able to feed their officers with so much of information resources to bring home clearly their role perception, what is the difficulty for the Nationalised Banks to give equal importance to the parallel functionaries i.e. the disciplinary authorities, whose ambit of job-profile is even wider than that of CVOs.

A system must provide for self-review and self-correction. Accountability of those who conduct investigations, draft charge sheets, present disciplinary cases before Inquiry Officers, or Conduct Inquires and submit Reports, as also finally the Disciplinary Authority, has to be assessed at the post-event phase, that they have all discharged the functions to the prescribed standards. In fact the DA Regulation of MYBANK has prescribed the "Review" under Regulation No.18 suited for a post-audit. The Review authority within six months of the last order on a disciplinary case, can itself suo moto call for the records of inquiry and study the same. It can revise the orders of penalty already issued, where this is warranted as per the review. But this provision in the DA Regulation should be brought under practical and comprehensive implementation. The Inquiry Officer, who conducts the inquiry should also be asked report separately (outside the Report of Inquiry) its comments on the quality of the investigation carried out and the performance of the Presenting officer. In turn the Disciplinary Authority should make a balanced appraisal of the performance of the Inquiry Officer as revealed report. The performance reporting on the Disciplinary authority to be made by the Review Authority. The purpose of such review is to bring out deficiencies and foster a standaridisation of inquiry process, to make it more transparent and acceptable to the general stream of officers.

An air balloon can float in the air, but not a ceiling, which has to be supported by walls/pillars and a foundation. Similarly a Charge sheet cannot be generated without a bonafide process of investigating the case. The tendency in most cases is not to conduct a regular comprehensive investigation (characterised as Preliminary Enquiry). In MYBANK charge sheet finalisation is conducted by a remote-administrative process, styled as "Staff-side-case finalisation". There is no personal interaction involved in this process and the entire work is attended by the concerned section in the Regional/Zonal offices by getting data from the branches through correspondence. Serious items of observations made by the Inspector in his report, referred as "Explanation items" are marked and advised by the Head Office, Inspection & Control Division. Based on this Regional/Zonal office concerned prepare a tabular statement named as "Remarks of Erring Officers". This tabular statement contains four columns as under:

1. Gist of the irregularity

2. Remarks of the Erring Officer

3. Obsaervations of the Regional/Zonal Office on item 2 above

4. Fial Orders of RM/ZM

As a result before recommending for charge sheeting, evidence on the basis of which the charges are to be proved is not gathered. Further the gist of the irregularity is recorded as observed by the Inspector, at the time of Inspection, while the staff side case on many occasions are reviewed after a delay of one year. Staff side case finalisation is thus done starting with stale data. The staff side cases consideration is thus devised on the style of "remote audit" (getting information from the branch and auditing the information). The draft charge sheet is submitted to Head office without any support data about evidences (witnesses or documents) No witnesses are examined and their testimony is recorded. The Disciplinary Authority has no means to verify that a prima facie case is established. He issues mechanically the charge sheet and the P.O. is thereafter advised to collect evidence and submit to the Inquiry Officer. Charge sheets generated through such defective process can never be perfect, and when the basic document is defective, the Inquiry conducted with such charge sheet can never be bonafide.

Regulation 6(4) reads as under:-

On receipt of the written statement of the officer employee, or if no statement is received within the time specified, an enquiry may be held by the Disciplinary Authority itself, or if it considers it necessary so to do, appoint under sub Section (2) an Inquiring Authority for the purpose.

Now clarifications needed are as under:-

How to deal with the written statement of reply of the charge officer? Should the material statements of defence therein be given credence and the charge sheets content reviewed and dropped, revised, diluted or retained as justified by the consideration of the replies?

A proviso to sub-regulation stipulates "that it may not be necessary to hold an inquiry in respect of articles of charge admitted by the officer employee in his written statement but shall be necesary to record its findings on each charge". It is fair and justified. But what about the charges that are denied and satisfactorily explained by the charged officer in his written statemet? How the Disciplinary Authority is to deal with them? And what about the charges that are pointedd out involving mistaken notions on the part of the disciplinary auhority and pertain to other officers, but wrongly subscribed to the charged officer? Is the disciplinary authority's vision should project only one side, i.e. against the charged officer and not those considerations favourable to the charged officer

When should the disciplinary authority close the disciplinary case at this juncture without oral inquiry, but either

1. dropping the charges and completely exonerating the charged officer,or

2. awarding a minor penalty of "censure" and closing the charge sheet, or

3. Dropping some of the articles/imputations of charges and restricting the inquiry only in respect of the remaining, or

4. amending, substituting some of the articles/imputations

Whenever charge-sheeting was done hastily with material discrepancies, there is an implicit opportunity for rectifiction of such material errors at the stage after receipt of written statement of reply from the charged officer.The reply of the CO, if properly utilised can afford the necessary opportunity to rectify such omissions. But there are no written guidelines on this point.

Providing defence assistance to the charged officer is the most important and essential of all facilities that go to benefit him to presenting his defence before the Inqiry Officer. When I was working as Chief Inspector, I offered to provide assistance to a Scale V (Asstt.General Manager) who was facing a disciplinary inquiry before the CDI of CVC. The authorities first refused permission to me. Then when I requested again the authorities permitted my request, but immediately transferred me from Inspection & Control Divison and posted me as Chief Manager of a branch. Yes, as Chief Inspector, I may represent Management point of view. But I had not conducted any investigation with reference to the disciplinary case, and in no way materially connected with the issues involved. The Scale V Officer is one with very clean record throughout. If I were posted as Chief Manager of the VLB do I cease to represent the Management. All officers in the senior management may be deemed to be nearer to the top managment in that way. But when a Scale V officer is facing a disciplinary case, can he approach a Scale III officer as defence Assistant?

There are a number negative/restrictive rules. When senior executives are facing disciplinary cases, no one comes forward at that level to provide them assistance. It is not so when Scale III, or Scale II officers are charge sheeted. These inquiries take place at the Zonal Level.

These are other areas, where arbitrary decisions prevent eligible facilities from reaching charged officers. Controlling officers refuse to relieve officers summoned as defence witness, where no such refusal is exercised in respect of Management witnesses.

Similarly the defence lists of documents are approved by the Inquiry Officer, based on assessment of relevancy thereof. But the custodians refuse to deliver these records for the inquiry. But no such refusal is made in respect of Presenting Officer's documents.

These anomalies can be substantially regulated if suitable guidelines on these matters are issued keeping into consideration the interests of all concerned. There are similar guidelines issued by the Government of India and these are quoted on this web-site.

Inquiry officer has to perform both directing and moderating responsibilities. He needs to decide solutions for deadlocks at the point of occurrence and his decisions are binding. But wrong decision by Inquiry Officer would have effect of nullifying the sanctity and legal validity of the Inquiry itself. Suitable guidelines on such areas as

1. conducting ex-parte inquiries

2. Moderating examination/cross-examination of witnesses

3. Guidelines for invoking powers under D.A.Regulation No.14 empowering the Inquiry Officer to take up imputations/articles not included in the charge-sheet

4. Guidelines for time-limit for completing Inquiries

The final report of the inquiry officer is the product output on which all endeavours relating to the oral inquiry commencing from the charge sheet are spent. There can be a logical end to the whole efforts, if this report is correctly and clearly drawn matching conclusions with the concept of "preponderance of evidence". Voluminous records are produced and from this the Inquiry Officer has to extract the cream i.e. "the truth". What tools by way of knowledge and guidelines he needs.

There can be clear guidelines to the Inquiry officer as to how to process the maze of records generated in the inquiry and submit a conclusive and clear but not a very voluminous report. There can also be explicit guidelines for the Disciplinary Authority as to how to study and assess the report and initiate action thereon. Such guidelines should be transparent and known to all and the charged officer should be satisfied that once his defence is placed effectively before the inquiry officer, the systems and procedures there after will automatically take charge of his interest and he will not suffer due to human failure, i.e. omissions and commissions of the Inquiry Officer and the Disciplinary Authority.

It is called 2nd reference or provision of Natural justice on the Second occasion. Opportunity is given to the charged officer, after providing him a copy of the Report of the Inquiry Officer, to express his comments. But the whole exercise becomes empty and hallow, if what the charged officer represents about discrepancies in the report of the Inquiry Officer are not objectively considered. This gives sufficient scope for the Disciplinary Authority to make an independent assessment based on the views of the Inquiry Officer as per his report and that of the charged officer made on the Inquiry Officer's report. The charged officer will normally pointout severl instances where the defence material evidence have not been taken into account and the Inquiry officer has arrived at conclusions, albeit one-sided conclusions. This safeguard will become effective only if there are specific guidelines for the Disciplinary Authority, fixing norms for consideration of the reply of the charged officer for 2nd reference. In the absence of such guidelines in most cases the formality of post-inquiry representation of the charged officer submitted to the Disciplinary Authority turns to be tame and superficial show, observed mechanically without sincerity.

Competency of the person to act as the Inquiry Officer is of prime importance to the Charged Officer. The norms of quasi-judicial objectivity and strict adherence to inquiry procedures can be ensured only if the Inquiry Officer appointed conforms to specific criteria. When the charged officer is genuinely concerned and makes an objection, it cannot be considered as a hindrance in the way of the smooth completion of inquiry process, for if the Inquiry Officer were to be biased there can be no smooth inquiry. Such objections have to carefully and critically analysed and decisions taken. But who can take this decision. Obviously the inquiry officer becomes an interested person in such analysis and he cannot be the judge, in a controversy where his own qualification and suitability are questioned. For once the Inquiry Officer has to suspend further proceedings and refer the matter to the Disciplinary Authority. Specific Guidelines in such a contingency for both the Inquiry Officer and the Disciplinary Authority need to be made available, considering all possible objections that can be raised. The rules should provide that this matter is raised and settled before the regular inquiry is to start, i.e. at the time of the preliminary hearing.

On this web site we have issued four chapters by way of guidelines to the Presenting officer, setting forth how he should handle in different contingencies. The PO is the principal performer and only his role provides gist for the inquiry. He is not only to present the evidence, he has to make adequate case preparation in this respect. He has also to exercise watchdog precautions lest the charged officer does not escape by providing perverse evidence. Obviously neither the PO, nor the Inquiry Officer without proper guidelines and instructions make an effective job of theirs.