NEW DELHI, Sept 17: The Supreme Court today asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to examine the allegation that Government was going ahead with the appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner(CVC) and Vigilance Commissioner (VC) by giving a go bye to the apex court directions.
“What should we do. You examine it and tell us tomorrow,” a bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha told Rohatgi.
The bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman, said the Government appears to be “restricting the appointment to one category of people where as the statute provides others.”
“This is in sharp contrast to the appointment of Lokpal”, the bench further observed after noting the submissions of senior advocate Ram Jethmalani and advocate Prashant Bhushan that the Centre was going ahead with the appointment of CVC and VC without giving wide publicity to the vacancies arising on the completion of tenure of CVC Pradip Kumar and VC J M Garg on September 28 and September 7 respectively.
They referred to the July 21 letter issued by the Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), to Secretaries in Government to suggest names for empanelment for the post of CVC and VC, allegedly aimed at keeping away the common people.
“The letter of July 21,2014 is contrary to the direction issued by apex court in the cases of Vineet Narayan v/s Union of India,” the application said.
Jethmalani said it was not necessary to put a restriction that every person who applies for the post should be a civil servant.
Bhushan said the letter suggests that no application can be directly entertained by the DoPT and only those sponsored by the Secretaries would be in the zone of selection.
The bench told the Attorney General that the application seeking to restrain the Government from proceeding ahead with the appointment has been filed when this court has already on August 4 issued notice and sought response of DoPT for making the appointment of CVC and VCs more transparent through public advertisement on the lines of Lokpal.
Besides raising the issue that the zone of consideration
has been restricted, wide publicity not given like in Lokpal, the application said that the officials working with the state governments such as chief secretaries etc. Have been excluded.
Further, the PIL petitioner, an NGO, Centre for Integrity, Governance and Training in Vigilance Administration, said that the necessary condition of experience in the field of Vigilance for the appointment of CVC and VCs, has been omitted to be taken into consideration.
It said that the civil servants retired on September 30, 2012 and July 30, 2014 have been excluded from the zone of consideration as the eligiblity criteria specifies that the names of only those persons will be considered, who will get at least three years tenure as CVC or VC.
It said that an incumbent CVC or VC remains in office until attaining age of 65 or upon the completion of four years, whichever is earlier.
The application further said that it is stated in the letter that those having retired on September 30, 2012 and July 30, 2014 are eligible to be appointed but they will not get an opportunity for the reason that they have been debarred from making application directly.
The application was filed in a pending PIL in which the apex court has sought response from the government on the plea for fixing minimum knowledge and experience in vigilance matters as essential criteria for appointment of CVC and VCs.
The NGO has contended that appointment for CVC and VCs be done by unanimity by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Home Minister and Leader of Opposition instead of by majority.
“In contrast to the provisions of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 with that of the provisions of the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003, it will be seen that no mechanism has been provided for selecting a CVC and two VCs. No advertisement is issued calling for the applications.
“It is not known how empanelling is done for making appointment of CVC and two VCs. The entire process of making selection and appointment is not transparent,” the petition said.
It said the Centre ought to have similar procedure for making appointment of CVC and VCs as is being done in the case of filling up one post of Chairperson and eight posts of Members in the Lokpal under the provisions of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013. (PTI)
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