Author: Mythili Bhusnurma
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: November 28, 2010
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/sunday-et/as-you-like-it/Hang-down-your-head-Mungeri-Lal/articleshow/7003161.cms
If impeccable integrity is a criterion, then every judicial appointment will
be subjected to scrutiny and every constitutional appointment will come under
challenge,' attorney-general G.E. Vahanvati told the Supreme Court last Monday
while defending the government's choice of PJ Thomas as Chief Vigilance Commissioner
(CVC).
What is amazing is that a man of Vahanvati's
stature should make such a comment. Impeccable integrity, with impeccable
in capital letters, is a pre-requisite of every judicial and constitutional
appointment. And yes, every such appointment must be challenged if it fails
to meet this test. Indeed it should be a pre-requisite of any appointment,
be it the most humble or the most majestic. Can one argue that a linesman
patrolling the railway tracks to check whether they are in good shape need
not be honest?
Honesty is integral to every job. But it is
an essential pre-requisite for appointment to judicial and constitutional
posts. For judicial posts because no justice can be delivered at the hands
of a corrupt judge; and for constitutional posts because it is these posts
that uphold the sanctity of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.
But for the CAG would any of us have been any the wiser about the corruption
in the allotment of spectrum?
Yet such is the sorry pass that we as a nation
have come to that the senior-most legal functionary of the government did
not think twice before questioning the need for integrity; that too for a
post like the CVC, the country's catcher-in-chief of corruption! Or before
admitting that it would be virtually impossible to find one man out of one
billion plus men and women whose integrity is impeccable! Impeccable conduct
could not be an eligibility criteria, he is reported to have said.
At a time when we are reeling under one scam
after another, the CWG Games , the 2 G Spectrum auction, the loans-for-bribes
scam, the Karnataka land allotment scam where the Chief Minister Yeddiyurappa
has questioned why he alone should be made the sacrificial lamb when everyone
around him is equally tainted, it might seem that way. But should we accept
it as a way of life or should we be more careful in our selection processes?
As far as top judicial appointments are concerned,
the Supreme Court has made a beginning in cleansing the process. A bench of
the Court has referred the issue of whether details of the appointments of
judges to the Supreme Court should be made public under the Right to Information
Act to a Constitution bench.
We need to bring similar transparency to appointments
to other constitutional posts. Thomas, who as former telecom secretary has
been accused of helping cover up the 2G spectrum controversy, was appointed
CVC in September despite being charge-sheeted in 2002 in a corruption case
in Kerala. The appointment was rammed through by the government despite opposition
from the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, who took
the unprecedented move of recording her written dissent to the selection.
A few months ago when the former CVC Pratyush
Sinha, was quoted saying that almost a third of Indians were 'utterly corrupt'
and half were 'borderline' the law minister Veerappa Moily was righteously
indignant. Calling such remarks a 'travesty of truth', he said the official
owed an apology to the nation. Will he now demand an apology from Vahanvati?
The fact is whether at the Centre or the States, corruption is now so ingrained
in our DNA that no one, not even the attorney general, seems to think it should
be a factor in appointment to top posts. No wonder we've not budged from our
near-bottom position in the Transparency International league tables on corruption
and Doing Business Reports of the World Bank list corruption as a major obstacle
to doing business in India.
For now the bench, headed by Chief Justice
SH Kapadia has given the government a fortnight to clarify whether impeccable
integrity is part of the eligibility criteria for appointment as CVC, as suggested
by the court earlier. This is like asking a man whether he has stopped beating
his wife! Should it even be necessary for the government to specify so basic
a condition as honesty for the post of CVC? And if honesty is not part of
his armour, how will the CVC be able to function, as the Court very rightly
questioned? The answer, in Bob Dylan's immortal words, is Blowin in the Wind.
