Case against CVC not placed before panel

Government on Thursday appeared to have tied itself in knots in the Supreme Court on the appointment of P J Thomas as CVC when it said a corruption case against him was not placed before the three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a claim contested by BJP which termed it as "untruth".

"It was not before the committee. The material pertaining to the sanction for prosecution under section 120B of the Indian Penal Code was not before the committee. The bio-data did not reflect this aspect before the committee," Attorney General G E Vahanvati said.

The AG's response came before a bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia to a question whether the material relating to the chargesheet and sanction was presented before the committee.

The Government submission was contested by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a member of the selection panel, Sushma Swaraj, who said she had raised the corruption issue before the Prime Minister and objected to the appointment of Thomas.

She said she would soon file an affidavit in the apex court on the issue.

In an unusual clarification in the afternoon, the AG told reporters that the committee also including Home Minister P Chidambaram may have discussed the case orally. "I don't know. There are no minutes."

He said during the morning court proceedings a specific query was raised as to whether the papers and the file pertaining to the Palmolein case pending against Thomas, the request for sanction of prosecution against him and the subsequent correspondence were circulated before members of the committee.

"I made a statement from the record that the papers and file were not circulated," the AG said adding when the counsel for the petitioner claimed that Swaraj had orally raised the issue, he had observed she had made a noting, "I disagree".

"Accordingly," Vahanvati said, "it was not possible for me to tell the court that what was or not discussed amongst the members of the committee at the meeting."

The AG said he had never stated that the Palmolein case was not discussed by the committee.

Replying to questions, he said, "what was discussed was not relevant to the query. It may have been discussed. I don't know. There are no details".

"We are not going into the merits of the case. We want to know whether the material pertaining to charge sheet and the sanction were brought before the committee or not," the court had asked in the morning.

"We want to know whether relevant material were brought before the committee and whether these documents were brought were before it," the bench also comprising K S Radhakrishnan and Swantanter Kumar said.

The Bench said it was raising the issue of not placing the relevant materials before the panel as the criteria of impeccable integrity was foremost for the appointment of CVC.

Also, the oath of office and secrecy is administered by the President.

It also wanted to know from the Centre whether it has considered the experience in various fields like vigilance, policy-making and administration including investigating skills as the eligibility criteria for the selection of Thomas as the CVC.

Vahanvati was making submissions on the questions raised at the outset of the hearing by the court which wanted to know if the issue of sanction and the chargesheet against Thomas was presented before the committee.

"Let us be clear. Prima facie at this stage we want to know what is the procedure by which the names (for CVC) was placed before the three-member panel and how the names of three persons were chosen," the bench said and added that it would like to know "whether the post of CVC is constitutional post or statutory post".

It said it would like to dwell upon the effect of the oath administered to the CVC which binds him to act without fear or favour.

"We want to know whether correct procedure was followed or the procedure was vitiated," it said and asked, "How many people (names) were in the zone of selection for the CVC?"

It also said it wanted to know about details of the empanelment as it was later pointed out that the 1973-batch IAS officers were not considered for empanelment and Thomas along with two others including Sujit Banerjee of 1972-batch was considered.

The bench said it was making it clear that these aspects had to be examined at the very threshold.

"We want to know whether relevant material was considered by the high-powered committee at the threshold or not?," the bench said.

"This is the priority on which we will go and not on the merits of the case," it said.

The bench told counsel Prashant Bhushan, who is representing petitioner NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation, which has moved the court questioning the legality of the CVC's appointment, that while the attorney general has answered its questions, he will have to now give his arguments on the selection issue.

"Now the AG has said. You tell us whether this government stand vitiates the process for selection," the bench said.

Bhushan questioned the stand of the government on the issue of sanction, saying, "How will Thomas function as CVC when a sword is hanging over his head?"

The bench said it would also like to go into the files relating to his appointment. The AG in turn said that all the four files will be placed before the court.

The CPIL and others have challenged Thomas' appointment as CVC, contending that he was considered for the crucial post despite objection from the Leader of the Opposition.

The petitioners have sought the court's direction to declare Thomas' appointment as illegal contending that there was violation of Section 4 of the CVC Act as the Prime Minister and the Home Minister insisted upon his name despite objection by the Leader of the Opposition, which shows the government had decided in advance to appoint him.

The PIL has said Thomas could not be appointed as CVC on account of "conflict of interest" as till recently he was serving as the Secretary in Telecom Ministry and there was an allegation that he was involved in the "cover-up" of the 2G spectrum scam, which, according to the petitioner, had caused a huge loss to the state exchequer.