Prime Minister's statement regarding quashing of central vigilance commissioner by the Supreme Court
Madam Speaker, the post of the Central Vigilance Commissioner was due to fall vacant on 8th September, 2010 on the completion of term of Shri Pratyush Sinha.
Under the CVC Act, 2003, the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner is required to be made by the President by Warrant under her hand and seal, and on the basis of the recommendation of a Committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People.
The meeting of the Committee took place on 3.9.2010. The Leader of the Opposition gave a dissenting note. In pursuance of the recommendations made by the Committee, the President appointed Shri P.J. Thomas as the CVC and he was sworn in on 7.9.2010.
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After the appointment of Shri Thomas, two public interest litigation petitions were filed in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Shri Thomas as the CVC.
Hon. Supreme Court declared the recommendation of the Committee as non-est in law and quashed the appointment of Shri P.J. Thomas as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.
Madam Speaker, the hon. Supreme Court has pronounced its decision. We accept and respect the verdict of the hon. Supreme Court. The Government will take into consideration the guidelines/directions given by the Court while appointing the new CVC.
[Among other protests, the leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj intervened to say (in rough English translation of her Hindi intervention):
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Madam Speaker, we were expecting that the Prime Minister would repeat what he said in the press conference in Jammu on the CVC. But I am surprised, Mr Prime Minister, that your statement is totally different from the one at Jammu. What you said is what I had even responded to, but today I was expecting that you would say the same in Parliament. There you said you were owning up to your responsibility. You also said that you've had a long tenure. In such a tenure, some mistakes can happen. And that this too is one such mistake. You had also said that such mistakes would not be repeated in the future. When these two things came up, I quickly responded that if the Prime Minister is owning up responsibility then the matter should rest. But I am very surprised that you have not said here in Parliament what you had said publicly. What you said publicly is what you should say here in Parliament as well.
which led the PM to add the following:]
Madam Speaker, I have no hesitation in repeating what I said in Jammu. Obviously, there has been an error of judgement and I accept the full responsibility for it.
[The PM got away without having to explain why his government was so keen to appoint Mr Thomas as the CVC, as Mr Advani had revealed to Outlook earlier that when he was Opposition leader, he had a meeting with Manmohan and then home minister Shivraj Patil who raised the issue of making Thomas CVC. Objections had been raised then too, and in fact Prithviraj Chavan (then minister in the PMO and now Maharashtra CM) had apparently tried to persuade Advani to rethink the matter]
