Actions speak louder than words, it is said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood to gain if immediately after the Supreme Court’s stinging verdict in the CVC case on Thursday he had summoned his top bureaucrats and asked them harsh questions about their failure to ensure that all the right materials available to the government reach him before he decides important questions.

In this particular instance, the relevant question was why the department of personnel and training failed to include in the dossier on Mr P.J. Thomas the crucial fact that the officer was facing a criminal chargesheet in Kerala and that sanction to prosecute him had not been rejected (although it had not been accorded either).

It is likely that Mr Thomas’ candidacy for the post of central vigilance commissioner would have been rendered infructuous if this relevant material had been placed before the PM. Alas, Dr Singh has done no such thing. He meekly said he would make a statement in Parliament (which is expected on Monday). That is as it should be, of course. The Prime Minister also noted that he accepted his responsibility in the matter and that coalition compulsions were not to blame in the CVC matter (as in the case of 2G and former communications minister A. Raja). This approach describes a conscientious man who shoulders responsibility, not a forceful doer who initiates prompt action to regain the confidence of his followers.
In every case that has hit the ceiling, starting with the Commonwealth Games affair last year, the Prime Minister has made pro forma observations suggestive of a bland business-as-usual approach, and overlooked the inner sensitivity of the matter when questions were first raised. Action has followed when the courts have stepped in, ending in mea culpa pronouncements in each case and a public loss of face. The Congress Party too has been caught on the wrong foot every single time, suggesting that there might be something seriously the matter with the interface that is said to exist between the party leadership and the highest level of government where, it appears, much too much reliance has been placed on top bureaucrats in the system. It cannot be overemphasised that civil servants are wont to display energy only when they stand to lose if they did not; otherwise they will the machinery to move at a stately pace for which justification rests in the thicket of procedures. Dr Singh appears to have allowed himself to be administered placebos by those who are meant to facilitate administration under his direct charge. No matter what he says in Parliament on the CVC matter, this state of affairs must change.
It is politically responsible of the BJP and the Left not to seek the Prime Minister’s resignation on the CVC matter. Equally, it is not so responsible to even remotely suggest that Dr Singh stood to gain even tangentially through the appointment of Mr Thomas as CVC. The error on the part of the Prime Minister is that he unwittingly presided over a state of drift instead of asking meaningful questions of those who serve in his administration. The time to change all that is now. In the light of the unambiguous, no-nonsense, judgment of the country’s highest court in the CVC case, it is shocking to hear Mr Thomas’ counsel say that his client has not resigned and may seek a review of the judgment. Mr Thomas risks making a mockery of himself through such an approach. The Chief Justice of India has made it plain that his appointment was “non-est” or did not exist in law, although this did not amount to judging him in the palmolein case. This will send a message to all concerned.