The quashing of the September 2010 appointment of Mr P.J. Thomas as central vigilance commissioner by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia strikes a blow for the notion of probity in administration. It is shocking that the high-powered committee that had cleared the appointment included the Prime minister and Union home minister, men whose integrity and distinction few would question.

Yet these two summarily dismissed the reservations of the third member of that body, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, assigning no reasons. This is an aspect of the matter on which the court was drawn to make an observation. It is to be hoped that when Dr Manmohan Singh makes a statement in Parliament on the subject, he will seek to offer a comprehensive explanation of why Ms Swaraj’s viewpoint was ignored out of hand without any reason given. The court has called Mr Thomas’ appointment arbitrary. Looking at the story how it came about, it does appear that the process that leads up to the consideration of candidates by the high-powered committee is also not wholly cogent. All facets of a contender’s public service are not given due consideration. In this particular case, the Prime Minister and home minister glossed over the crucial consideration that Mr Thomas had a criminal case pending against him in Kerala from the time he was food secretary in the state. Was this matter placed on the files that the committee perused? On the basis of what has appeared in the public domain, the answer is hazy. It will be interesting to see what the Prime Minister as well as the Leader for the Opposition have to say about this in Parliament.
It is conceivable that a person of integrity may have a criminal case foisted on him owing to adverse circumstances. The Supreme Court has duly noted that it did not wish to “discount” Mr Thomas’ personal integrity. It nevertheless underlined the question of “institutional integrity”. This quite simply means that even if a man of integrity has a criminal case against him, he should not be appointed, especially as head of a sensitive authority such as the Vigilance Commission. The court has asked the apposite question: Can such a person discharge his duties effectively? This issue had been raised by none other than the Chief Justice himself in the course of the hearings on the CVC’s appointment, which resulted from a public interest litigation. There was no clear answer from the government, which sought to make its case based on narrow technicalities. It is a pity that a person of Dr Singh’s integrity went along with this shoddy procedure. Instead of grasping the essence of the matter, he persuaded himself to be impressed with a legalistic defence of the government’s decision to go ahead with Mr Thomas’ appointment in the face of Ms Swaraj’s objection.
The Chief Justice of India has rightly called the office of the CVC an “integrity institution”. Especially in such a case a candidate with criminal proceedings pending against his name should have been kept out of consideration. This would be common sense to most people in everyday life. And yet the government was blind to such obvious logic. This suggests nothing less than hubris — the arrogance of power, and a throwback to feudal and colonial times. As the democratic space expands, governments must learn to be more circumspect and more transparent in their actions. When the present government is under so much pressure on the issue of corruption, the Supreme Court in the CVC case has certainly put it on the backfoot. It can retrieve some ground only by moving purposively in all high-profile corruption cases that are in the public eye. Firm institutional steps are needed, not piecemeal announcements.