"17A. (1) No police officer shall conduct any enquiry or inquiry or investigation
into any offence alleged to have been committed by a public servant under this Act,
where the alleged offence is relatable to any recommendation made or decision
taken by such public servant in discharge of his official functions or duties, without
the previous approval-
Provided that no such approval shall be necessary for cases involving arrest
of a person on the spot on the charge of accepting or attempting to accept any
undue advantage for himself or for any other person:
Provided further that the concerned authority shall convey its decision under
this section within a period of three months, which may, for reasons to be recorded in
writing by such authority, be extended by a further period of one month."
i) On receipt of complaint / allegation / source report relating to offences alleged
to have been committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, the
Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption shall initially take up a factual verification
in the first instance and shall weed out baseless, vague, frivolous, vexatious
complaints.
ii) No action is required to be taken on anonymous complaints, irrespective of
the nature of allegations and such complaints need to be filed.
iii) If a complaint contains verifiable allegations, it shali be verified with the
complainant for owning / disowning, as the case may be, and if no response is
received from the complainant within a reasonable time, the said complaint may be
filed as pseudonymous.
iv) Repeated complaints regarding the same allegations and previously
disposed, may be filed.
v) Complaints / Petitions received against the elected members of the Local
Bodies and the Officers and employees working under the local bodies, shall be
forwarded to the Tamil Nadu Local Bodies Ombudsman for further action under the
Tamil Nadu Local Bodies Ombudsman Act, 2014.
4. After factual verification as laid down in para 3 above and on admitting the
complaints / petitions by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, where the
alleged offence is relatable to any recommendation made or decision taken by such
public servant in discharge of his official functions or duties, for the purpose of
obtaining previous approval under Section 17A(1) of the Prevention of Corruption
Act, 1988, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption shall adopt the following
procedure:
i) where an enquiry or inquiry is proposed against a Group A or Group B
Officer, who is or was employed at the time when the offence was alleged to have
been committed, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption shall forward the
materials to the authority competent to remove him from his office, through Vigilance
Commission.
ii) where an enquiry or inquiry is proposed against a Group C or Group D
Officer or institutional staff, i.e., officers and employees of any Body or Board or
Corporation or Authority or Company or Society or Public Sector Undertaking or
Trust or University or Autonomous Body, established by an Act, who is or was
employed at the time when the offence was alleged to have been committed, the
Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, shall forward the materials to the
authority competent to remove him from his office, with a copy marked to the
monitoring authority concerned as indicated in para 6 below and to the Vigilance
Commission.
iii) where an enquiry or inquiry is proposed against officers belonging to
different categories (Groups A, B, C, D and institutional Staff) in the same
department, who are jointly involved, the Directorate of Vigilance and
Anti-Corruption, shall forward the materials to the authority competent to remove the
officer who holds the highest post, by adopting the procedure laid down above in (i)
or (ii), as the case may be.