Taking cognisance of a petition by 83 former top bureaucrats, led by ex-Cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian, for implementing four reports on administrative reforms and anti-graft measures, the Supreme Court on Friday sought responses of the Centre and states on their plea citing the “deficit of governance” as the main reason for rampant corruption in the country.
Terming the PIL moved by former bureaucrats as “very important”, a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandri and Deepak Verma issued notices to the Centre and the state seeking their replies within four weeks.
Besides Mr Subramanian, the prominent among those who appended the PIL include former ambassador to the US Abid Hussain, former Chief Election Commissioners T.S. Krishna Murthy and N. Gopalaswami, former top cops Ved Marwah and Joginder Singh and several ex-secretary level officers of the Union government.
They sought implementation of the reports of Hota Committee on civil service reform, Second Administrative Reforms Commission report on Central staffing scheme, Santhanam panel report on prevention of corruption and Jha Commission recommendations on the economic administration reforms.
“Structurally, public administration in the country is compromised by corruption within the administration… weak governance, manifesting itself in poor service delivery, excessive regulation, whimsical interventions governed by considerations of personal benefits, uncoordinated and wasteful public expenditure, inadequate transparency and lack of accountability, has reduced the effectiveness of the government polices and impinged adversely on growth and development,” the PIL said.