KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday dismissed the petitions challenging the decision of the selection committee headed by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to recommend the names of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau former director Vinson M Paul and five others to the posts of the State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioners respectively.
Justice A Muhamed Mustaque upheld the recommendations while dismissing the petitions filed by Advocate D B Binu, Jomon Puthenpurackal of Neendoor and others challenging the recommendation of the selection committee.
The court observed that at this stage it cannot examine the suitability of the selected candidates for the post. “If the petitioners feel that any of candidates suffer from disability of appointment, they are free to challenge the appointment of such individual after the appointment. Any interference at this stage would be premature.” the court observed.
The court also observed that it was not in the province of the court to prevail upon the wisdom of the selection committee by making comparative evaluation of the selected candidate with non-selected candidates. The freedom to choose a person who fulfilled the criteria had been give to the selection committee.
It was perhaps the reason why the law provided that the committee should be headed by the Chief Minister and consisted of a Cabinet minister and the Leader of Opposition. There was no requirement to demonstrate the comparative evaluation of all the candidates to the satisfaction of all.The Leader of the Opposition V S Achuthanandan had no objection to short-listing the candidates. That meant that the Leader of Opposition had accepted the course or procedure of selection by shortlisting the candidate. The only insistence was that it should be based in terms of ‘eminence’ in any of the disciplines.
Achuthanandan nowhere appeared to have mooted a comparative analysis of the candidates for shortlisting. If he had raised objection to short listing of any individual candidate, majority should have given reasons to overrule his objection.
As the Opposition Leader had not questioned the individual merit of the shortlisted candidates, the selection process as such could not be held as vitiated, the court said.
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