Barely five months ago, Congress leaders alleged that the Vajpayee Government made former CBI director P C Sharma a member of the National Human Rights Commission as a reward for dropping conspiracy charges against L K Advani in the Ayodhya case. The party would be eating its words now. For, the Manmohan Singh Government has defended Sharma’s appointment before the Supreme Court. Responding to a PIL, Solicitor General Goolam E Vahanvati asserted that Sharma’s appointment was based on the recommendation made ‘‘unanimously’’ on February 19 by the prescribed selection committee which included the then leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi, and her counterpart in the Rajya Sabha, Manmohan Singh. Vahanvati’s oral statement, ironically, differs from the affidavit filed by the Vajpayee Government which was non-committal on whether Sonia had been consulted on the first-ever appointment of a police officer as a member of the NHRC. If anything, the NDA’s affidavit suggested that the selection committee constituted after the dissolution of the 13th Lok Sabha on February 5 did not include Sonia. ‘‘It is denied that (Sharma’s appointment) is vitiated by any vacancy in the committee in the absence of the leader of the Opposition in the House of People,’’ the affidavit had said. Significantly, the Vajpayee Government went on to refer to Section 4(2) of the NHRC Act which it said ‘‘provides that no appointment of a chairperson or a member of the commission shall be invalid merely by reason of any vacancy in the committee.’’ The petitioner’s counsel, Rajinder Sachar, suggested to the court that the Government should not be allowed to ‘‘change its stand’’ on such a sensitive issue through Vahanvati’s oral statement. Accordingly, the bench, comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice D M Dharmadhikari, directed the Home Secretary to file a fresh affidavit within two days containing details of the procedure followed in Sharma’s appointment. Thus, the Manmohan Singh Government will now have to defend in writing the very appointment which the then Congress spokespersons Jaipal Reddy and Kapil Sibal had linked to the CBI’s handling of the Babri Masjid demolition case. Sharma’s selection raised a controversy because of its timing as well. Though the vacancy in the NHRC arose in November 2003 and Sharma retired the following month, he was appointed to that post only on February 25 when the Government was functioning in a caretaker capacity in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
