Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set up a three-member panel of experts to suggest measures to expedite the process of disciplinary and vigilance proceedings against corrupt officials, but on the other hand he is himself dragging feet in filling up two vacancies in the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) since last year.

The panel, which has been given a two-month time frame to give its report, have former chief vigilance commissioner P Shankar and former personnel secretaries P C Hota and Arvind Verma as its members.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said the panel was felt necessary as the UPA II wants to ensure that the vigilance cases are disposed of quickly but the fact is that the CVC is handicapped to expedite cases before it because of vacancies of the two vigilance commissioners.

The CVC currently has just one Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pradyut Sinha, a 1969 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, who himself set up a nine-member advisory council only last month to help him in coping with the burden that otherwise was shared by two other vigilance commissioners.

Shankar happens to be a common name on both the panel and the advisory council. Other council members include decorated former Mumbai Police commissioner F Ribeiro, Infosys chief N R Naryanamurthy and Business Standard editor Sanjaya Baru.