Trivial pursuit

At a time when his office should be shouldering up to the task of excavating large-scale corruption in the government,the central vigilance commissioner is preoccupied with justifying himself to the Supreme Court. P.J. Thomas insisted that his selection was entirely within the bounds of propriety,as he was the most senior of over 40 IAS secretaries. He suggested that being screened and getting vigilance clearance to be selected as a secretary to the Centre proved his impeccable integrity. Referring to the palmolein import case that has followed him around for 19 years,he contended that civil servants are often smeared as they ascend the career ladder,whether or not they are guilty of misconduct. Many of these cases are trumped up or politically motivated,he claimed. In presenting the charges against him now being investigated by the SC almost as a burr that attached itself to him along the way,to be casually flicked away,Thomas is trivialising the unseemliness of this situation.

The manner of appointment of Thomas as CVC is a mistake that has been compounded several times over by a stubborn government. The question is not whether or not he is culpable it is the perfunctoriness of the process that chose him which is problematic. Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati acknowledged that there was no mention of the palmolein case in the documents presented before the selection panel. This detail is important because the government overrode the leader of the oppositions reservations by claiming that a majority decision was sufficient. And it continues to doggedly defend its mistake,even now,finessing the SCs question about whether the chargesheet was a stigma or not. Moreover,given that he was telecom secretary,Thomas has offered to recuse himself from the 2G spectrum investigation,the most enormous task that confronts our investigative agencies because of his own stint as telecom secretary.

This kind of back-and-forth on clearances and screenings may go on,but is far from convincing,and does little to undo the Centres primary mistake of having picked a less-than-suitable candidate.