The Centre faced scrutiny from Supreme Court on Thursday over the criteria set out to fill vacancies in high offices including tribunal posts where it said stenographers were coming up for interview for a post in tribunals equivalent to High Court judgeship.
The comments were made by a Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M Mohan Shantanagoudar before reserving orders on two petitions challenging the appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) KV Chowdhary and Vigilance Commissioner (VC) TM Bhasin.
While dealing with the petitions filed by NGOs Common Cause and Centre for Integrity, Governance and Training, the Bench told the Centre that while inviting applications for posts to high offices, the Government should not lay down "general" criteria as this prevented meritorious persons from applying.
Justice Mishra gave a personal account of what he faced while interviewing persons for filling up posts in a Tribunal after the Centre tweaked Rules in order to expand the zone of consideration. The bench observed, "It is a shocking state of affairs. Even stenos who have risen to become Deputy Registrars claiming 13 years of experience in dealing with judicial work came up for interviews for posts in tribunals. Rules must be such that eligibility qualification is laid out for each post instead of laying down general criteria for all posts."
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta told the Court that the matter would be taken up at the highest level. The Bench said that the Rules need serious re-look and if the Centre was not inclined to take it up, the Court may do so under its suo moto powers.
Meanwhile, the Court ended its elaborate hearing on the twin appeals and even went through the official files relating to both Chowdhary and Bhasin to conclude whether the Selection Committee had examined each of the complaints raised by representations made against them by the petitioner NGO's lawyer Prashant Bhushan, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani and industrialist Anil Aggarwal. The bench was convinced that all allegations were considered and opinions sought from concerned investigating agencies to conclude satisfaction on the appointment.
Against Chowdhary, Bhushan alleged that he favoured slain businessman Ponty Chadha's firm Flora and Fauna Housing and land Development Private limited in an income tax proceeding by under-assessing the income of the company by almost Rs 234 crore. Also, he failed to act against disclosures made in Nira Radia tapes after having intercepted the calls as DG, Income Tax.