The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has claimed in its annual report that, though it red-flagged more than 50 cases of alleged corruption, nepotism, high-handedness and red-tapism in 2016, the government departments concerned refused to comply with its directive after initial investigations. A cursory review of the cases referred to by the CVC reveals that they all related to procedural lapses involving petty cash. The report was submitted to the government earlier this month. It says it discovered the maximum number of irregularities in the Ministry of Railways (12), followed by PSU banks (7), Ministry of Civil Aviation (5) and Central Excise and Customs (4). It observes that in many of these cases, the CBI initiated FIRs, recommended the suspension of the officials involved and action against senior functionaries of these departments. However, the report states, its advice was ignored or not fully acted upon. Take, for instance, its indictment against officials of  Kandla Port Trust under the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) which is a wing of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). Even though the CBI registered a case against officials of KPT on the basis of a CVC recommendation, "the commission was intimated by MoRTH in December 2016 that there has been neither mala-fide on the part of the official concerned nor any loss of revenue to the port, hence the disciplinary authority has not accepted the advice of the CVC/CBI for initiating penalty against the then Chairman, KPT and has decided to close the case." If the CVC lays its hands in these kinds of cases, there is no doubt that it may lose public esteem.