A controversial former top judge, understood by some media outlets last year to be the subject of a corruption investigation, has suggested in a new book that China sets up a special team to probe alleged graft.

Scholars said the idea of establishing a unified State-level anti-corruption organ, proposed in the postscript of Xiao Yang's new book, was a step in the right direction. But they said the concept put forward by the former president of the Supreme People's Court was "hardly realistic" in the existing political and judicial system.

Xiao's book, Anti-corruption Report, was formally released yesterday by the Legal Press. In it, Xiao says corruption in China is the result of a lack of supervision and the absence of a sound anti-graft mechanism.