Government to assess anti-graft measures to fulfil UN body norms

As part of its mandatory obligation under the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the government has invited expression of interest (EoI) from registered Indian law institutionsfirms, academic or research organizations to undertake the self-evaluation study.

Selected agency will be required to complete its works – assessment of compliance of domestic lawsmeasures vis-a-vis requirements under UNCAC provisions – within 36 weeks. India had ratified the global convention to check corruption on May 9, 2011.

As per the EoI, invited by the department of personnel and training (DoPT), the independent agency will also be mandated to find gaps and interact with ministries of home affairs, external affairs, law & justice, corporate affairs; Central Vigilance Commission and CBI to gather inputs or clarifications while fulfilling norms laid down under the UNCAC.

However, two major areas – bribery of foreign public officials and bribery in private sector – will not be part of the report.

The UNCAC is an international legal instrument to deal with corruption, which imposes obligations on member states to provide legal and administrative measures for facilitating recovery of assets in trans-border corruption and promoting international co-operation in combating trans-border graft through measures like mutual legal assistance, extraditions and joint investigations among others.

India is among the 160 nations that have either ratified or acceded to UNCAC provisions.

The DoPT, during the course of the due diligence exercise of ratification of the UNCAC, has carried out in-house inter-ministerial consultations for a broad assessment of the state of compliance of the provisions of the global initiative.

"The process of corrective course of action is currently on … The relevant documents in this respect will be shared at a later stage of the tender process after evaluation of EoIs with the shortlisted agencies," said the EoI.