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7. The petitioners filed writ petition thereagainst in this Court, which was registered as WP (C) No. 5496/2008. By order dated 31.7.2008 this writ petition was dismissed as withdrawn with liberty to the petitioners to file a review application. Accordingly, the petitioners preferred RA No. 124/2008 but unsuccessfully as that has also been dismissed by the Tribunal vide its orders dated 24.12.2008.

8. It would be necessary to mention at this stage that in WP (C) No. 5496/2008 the petitioners had argued that there was no absolute bar in the CVC‟s instructions from not holding disciplinary proceedings on pseudonymous/innocuous complaints. In this behalf, the petitioners had relied upon CVC‟s instructions dated 29.6.1999 and 31.1.2002. It was on this basis that this Court had allowed the petitioners to prefer review application bringing the aforesaid instructions of CVC to the notice of the Tribunal as the petitioners had argued that in spite of due diligence the aforesaid instructions could not be brought to the notice of the Tribunal. The Tribunal while dismissing the review application has reminded itself of its limited jurisdiction in entertaining such review petitions and observed as under :-

"10. Applying the aforesaid to the conspectus of the present case for showing an error apparent on the face of record a long drawn process has been adopted by the respondents, the error was not self evident and was made to be discovered allegedly, which is not a ground of review the order.
11. As regards consideration of CVC instructions of October 2002, it is a mere discovery but the parties seeking review has not shown that this piece of evidence was not within their knowledge and even after exercise of due diligence it could not be brought to the notice of the Tribunal. Moreover, the Tribunal has taken note of it while stressing upon a specific circular of Customs and Central Excise issued on 18.1.2006, where all the instructions of CVC were taken into consideration and thereafter a decision has been arrived at to quash the disciplinary proceedings.

12. Further these instructions were reiterated on review by the CVC on 30.1.2002 with the following decision:

"2. However, it has come to the notice of the commission that some Govt. Deptts/Orgns. And, in particular, banks are not complying with the CVC‟s instructions and have been taking cognizance/action on anonymous/pseudonymous complaints. Very often, the content of the complaint, described as verifiable is used as a justification for such action. The instruction of the commission does not permit this line of action."
(f) These complaints demoralize many honest public servants. The CVC has itself stated that most of these complaints are entertained at various levels to harass the officers.

12. The message behind the aforesaid instructions is loud and clear.

Normal rule is not to entertain such pseudonymous/innocuous complaints. Only in exceptional cases where verifiable details are found, further action should be taken. This explanation has to be treated as only an explanation and not to take the place of the normal rule, which would mean that only in very exceptional circumstances, on such pseudonymous/innocuous complaints wherein some justification is found after verification, that those be entertained. One has to be particularly circumspect when such complaints are received at a time when a public servant is due for promotion. Commenting upon these instructions of the CVC, the High Court of Madras in the case of P.M. Ramalingam v. The Director General of Police, Central Reserve Police Force (WP Nos. 11543-544/2000 decided on 26.9.2003) observed as under :-