The apex court Monday declined to admit two PILs on the contentions relating to the appointment of Shashi Kant Sharma as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India,and said a High Court was equally competent to pass necessary orders. Why should we entertain a petition under Article 32 (for enforcement of fundamental rights)? Go to the High Court. It is equally competent to hear your matter and grant the reliefs you have asked for, said a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir as it refused to hear the two petitions. One of these PILs was moved by a civil society group,comprising former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami,former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral (retd) R H Tahiliani,former deputy CAG B P Mathur and others. The second one had been filed by Delhi lawyer M L Sharma. While the Bench gave Sharma an opportunity to argue as to why the apex court should admit his plea,senior advocate Fali S Nariman could not even begin his arguments as the Bench turned down his request to be heard and dismissed the petition summarily. Sharma,a 1976-batch Bihar cadre IAS officer and a former defence secretary was sworn in as the new CAG in May this year. The 61-year-old bureaucrat took over from Vinod Rai. The PILs had sought setting aside of Sharmas appointment,alleging it was made arbitrarily,without any system for selection,criteria,evaluation or transparency. Urging the court to frame guidelines for appointment of the CAG,the petitions also pointed that Sharma had in the last 10 years held several sensitive positions in the defence ministry that dealt with significant procurements and now appointing him as CAG would mean a conflict of interest.
