Chief minister Naveen Patnaik administers oath on making corruption-free, transparent administration during the inauguration of the Vigilance Awareness Week in Bhubaneswar on Monday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 3: The vigilance department, which registered graft cases against 537 grade-I officers and filed chargesheets in case of 317 during the past five years, today called upon “honest public servants and citizens to be whistle-blowers” to unravel corruption.

Vigilance department director Anup Kumar Patnaik said the Central Vigilance Commission had provided a new avenue to lodge complaint against corrupt officers under the public interest disclosure and protection of informers’ resolution (popularly known as whistle-blowers’ resolution).

“This is a very effective method by which any member of public or an honest government servant can disclose corrupt practices or about corrupt officers directly to CVC, which is duty-bound to keep the secrecy of the informer. This system will protect the life and career of whistle-blowers,” Patnaik said at a state-level function to observe vigilance awareness week.

The murder of IIT engineer Satyendra Dubey in November 2003, who fought against corruption, has prompted the CVC to introduce this new system, he said. Stating that such system would be widely publicised to encourage honest citizens and public servants to approach CVC directly with the promise of secrecy of his identity, he called upon people to resort to this method to unravel corruption and help punish the corrupt.

As part of its anti-corruption drive, the state vigilance wing has till now registered 85 cases against 32 IAS officers and chargesheeted 10 of them, he added. Similarly, 11 cases were registered against seven IPS officers and 28 cases against 21 Indian Forest Service officers.

During the past five years, the department registered 1,713 cases against 537 grade-I officers, 450 grade-II officers, 1,483 grade-III employees, 42 grade-IV staff, 333 other public servants and 878 private persons. Chargesheets have been filed in 1,232 cases, he said.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik said the record of his government in fighting out corruption was well known. “My government makes no compromise in maintaining integrity in public life,” he said. Naveen said this year two such courts had been set up in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.