New Delhi, Apr 4 (IANS): A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked CBI not to spare the corrupt, independent MP Kapil Sibal on Tuesday questioned the conviction rate in the current government which was only 71 in 2016.

"PM to CBI : Don't spare the corrupt,

March 2016 : Jitender Singh told Parliament "

But the fact is 2013 : 1136 persons convicted for corruption, 2014 : 993, 2015 : 878, 2016 : 71

"Conviction of the corrupt higher during UPA! Men may lie but facts do not lie

Who is protecting the corrupt?" Sibal tweeted.

On Monday, the Prime Minister attacked the previous dispensations for their apparent lax attitude towards dealing with corruption and said that it was only after 2014, when the BJP-led dispensation came to power, that the malaise was dealt with severely.

Addressing a gathering while inaugurating the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Modi said that unfortunately India got a legacy of corruption at the time of Independence and lamented the fact that instead of removing it, "some people kept nourishing this malady".

He recalled the "scams and the prevailing sense of impunity just a decade ago, when the UPA dispensation was in power".

"This situation led to the destruction of the system and an atmosphere of policy paralysis brought the development to stand still," he said.

After 2014, the Prime Minister reiterated that the priority of the government was to instill faith in the system and for this, the government started taking action against black money and benami property in mission mode and started inflicting damage on the corrupt as well as the reasons behind the corruption.