Honest officers should not be harassed for bonafide mistakes says Manmohan Singh

Holding that honest officers should not be harassed for bonafide mistakes made while making "well-meaning" decisions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today warned that if this was not done, decision making will suffer badly and governance will be stifled.

He also called for moderation of public debate about corruption as "unwarranted condemnation" of the decisions and imputation of "guilt and malafide" on decision makers need to change.

Addressing the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the Prime Minister said it was an ultimate aim of any anti-corruption mechanism to contribute towards improvement of the processes of governance and delivery of services which can happen only when bold and innovative decision-making was encouraged.

"Therefore, we must make sure that honest officers are not harassed for bonafide mistakes that they might make while taking well-meaning decisions," he said, adding that CVC should live upto the words of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who had said the commission should be a fearless champion of the man of integrity and source of terror to corrupt officers.

"We must ensure the championing of the cause of the man of integrity in all our institutions. In the scenario in which this does not happen, decision-making would suffer badly and instead of improving the processes of governance, we would end up stifling them," Singh said.