Rot at the top - CVC corruption saga gets curious in SC

The Supreme Court hearing on P.J. Thomas's appointment as Central Vigilance Commissioner took a curious turn on Thursday. The government told the court that the chargesheet against Thomas in the palmolein import case -- and the Kerala government's sanction for his prosecution -- had never been placed before the Prime Minister-led committee that selected him for the country's top anti-corruption post.

That claim drew immediate fire. Sushma Swaraj, the Leader of the Opposition and a member of the three-person selection committee, called it "not at all true," saying she had personally brought the corruption charges against Thomas to the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram. She said she would file an affidavit in the court to that effect.

Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati told the bench, headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, that the bio-data placed before the committee contained no material on the chargesheet or the sanction for prosecution. The court made clear it was not going into the merits of the palmolein case itself -- the question before it was whether the right procedure had been followed in the appointment.

Then came the day's strangest moment. Later, the Attorney-General clarified that the committee may well have discussed the corruption charges against Thomas orally -- he simply did not know, he said, because there are no minutes of the committee's discussions. He added that he had not stated the palmolein case was not discussed by the committee.

So the position stood like this: the selection panel for the nation's chief vigilance officer either never saw the chargesheet against him, or discussed it without leaving a trace. The court posted the matter for further hearing. (The saga ended on March 3, when the Supreme Court quashed Thomas's appointment, declaring that "the institution is more important than the individual.")