In a first, the Centre has decided to empower the common man to seek prosecution of corrupt civil servants. The move is prompted by a Supreme Court judgement  that says that there is no provision in relevant laws which bars a citizen from filing a complaint for prosecution of a public servant who is alleged to have committed an offence. The judgment was delivered in the case of Subramanian Swamy versus the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and others. Following this verdict, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has been in receipt of requests from private persons seeking sanctions for prosecution of members of higher bureaucracy without any proper proposal and supporting documents. Most of these requests tend to mere complaints without any supporting details, which can at best merit inquiry, the DoPT said in a draft guidelines issued on Thursday. Keeping in view the basic parameters and requirements for cases received from investigating agencies, it has been decided to streamline the procedure for handling the requests for prosecution sanction received from the private person, it said. "A proposal from a private individual seeking sanction for prosecution of an IAS officer serving in the state government may be routed through the concerned state government as such state government is best placed to provide basic inputs as regards the alleged misconduct of the concerned public servant who is or was working under its administrative control," the draft said. "In case a proposal is received directly by DoPT, such private individuals will be forwarded to the state governments for the preliminary examination by such state government vis-a-vis the relevant records," it added.