It’s time to fix the method of selecting CVC

There are a couple of points in the PJ Thomas controversy that have not received the attention they deserve in the current debate.

Manmohan Singh has stated that he did not know about the chargesheet against Thomas when the matter came up before him in the high-powered committee to select the CVC.

Since it is the PM who has made this admission and before parliament, his statement should be respected and accepted.

It is another matter that passing the blame on to his then junior minister, Prithviraj Chavan, for selecting the panel even as he took responsibility for the “error of judgment” did not go down well with many.

Through his plea of ignorance, Singh may have wanted to reclaim the high moral ground that he has lost of late, but his statement has only raised serious questions about his grip over the administration.

Information or no information, the PM has emphasised the need for “Caesar’s wife to be above suspicion” during his interaction with TV editors not long ago. Everyone knew that Thomas was telecom secretary under A Raja.

There were allegations flying against Raja on the 2G spectrum from 2008 onwards. As secretary, Thomas handled queries from the CBI on behalf of his minister. To even think of making him CVC, who would thus oversee the CBI’s probe into the 2G scam, should have been unthinkable.

But of greater concern is the importance given, or not given, to the process of selecting the watchdog to man the country’s “integrity institution”.

The Supreme Court (SC) in 1997 envisaged a high-powered committee to select the CVC to make sure that the executive did not appoint a person who would do their bidding. The early 1990s had seen CBI directors change with rapidity and it was said at the time that they could be found in the ante room of the PM’s chamber!

Since the PM says he did not have information about Thomas’s controversial antecedents, these facts were obviously hidden from him by those who were supposed to do due diligence.

The irony is that the leader of the opposition (LOP) brought the antecedents to his attention. Before she recorded her dissent on Thomas’s name, Sushma Swaraj offered to endorse either of the other two names on the panel.

In this instance, Swaraj was not even trying to push a name of her choice, which might have aroused the suspicions of the others.
She was also willing to consider a name outside the panel and meet again the next day since the PM insisted the CVC’s swearing-in ceremony had been fixed for three days later.

But neither the PM nor the home minister were ready to relent. They were adamant that the decision had to be finalised that day and it had to be Thomas.

It is still not clear whether this was due to pressure from the party or the PMO-backed IAS lobby; there are murmurings on Raisina Hill that the PM is now as dependent on his principal secretary TKA Nair as Atal Bihari Vajpayee was on Brajesh Mishra!

Home minister P Chidambaram has maintained that Sushma Swaraj did not have the power to “veto” a decision, but surely the LOP is not just a decorative piece on the high-powered committee.

Though the Supreme Court has not insisted that the CVC be chosen by “consensus”, the inclusion of the LOP in the selection committee was to lay down checks and balances and prevent arbitrariness in decision-making.

It was, therefore, not surprising that the Supreme Court used strong words to condemn the appointment and laid down guidelines that the CVC had to be someone of unimpeachable integrity and need not be a civil servant.

Among other things, the Thomas affair has highlighted the need  to define the LOP’s role in the selection process, since the three-member HPC will always have two members from the government side who will always be able to overrule the LOP, the third member. 

It would be short-sighted to view this as a Congress versus BJP tussle, for a party in power today can be in opposition tomorrow.

This is critical since the successor to Thomas — even as he plans to seek a review of the court’s decision by a five-member bench — will have to be selected soon.

The manner in which the government goes about this will demonstrate how sincere it is about making amends and about ensuring the health of our institutions.