Details placed before the committee for appointing CVC sought under RTI
4 Oct, 2012The details about the appointment of the former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Polayil Joseph Thomas that were placed before the committee headed by Prime Minister were sought through an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to the Public Information Officer (PIO) of the Cabinet Secretariat. It has been claimed by the RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal that the Cabinet Secretariat has refused to divulge the complete biodata and other details of former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Polayil Joseph Thomas that were placed before the high power committee headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It has been claimed that other information about the service of Mr. Thomas as the Food Secretary in the Kerala government during 1991-93, when he was included as one of the accused in the palmolein oil import scam, was also refused.
Mr. S.C. Agrawal had alleged that some rules were amended to select the 1973 Kerala cadre IAS officer as the CVC. At the meeting of the high power committee to select the new CVC, committee member and Supreme Court quashed the in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, who was a member of the high power committee to select the new CVC had objected to the appointment of Mr. Thomas to the post. The other member of the Committee which was headed by the Prime Minister was the then Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
The appointment of Mr. Thomas as the CVC was set aside by a bench of Supreme Court headed by the then Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar in March, 2011.