Supreme Court refuses to quash appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner, VC

The apex court said it cannot interfere into the appointments of Chowdary and Bhasin as no grounds have been made to quash their appointments.
Supreme Court (File | EPS)
Supreme Court (File | EPS)

NEW DELHI: In a big relief for Centre, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the petition challenging the appointment of K V Chowdary as Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) and T M Bhasin as Vigilance Commissioner.

The court upholds both the appointments. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Mohan M Shantanagoudar pronounced the verdict in PIL filed by NGO Common Cause in July 2015. The court found that the no grounds to interfere with the appointments of Chowdary and Bhasin.

The petitioner had contended that the appointments were arbitrary and violative of the principle of impeccable integrity.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan had argued that both Chowdary and Bhasin had blemished records and could not be said to have had impeccable integrity and challenged their appointment stating that the appointments were non transparent.

Bhushan also alleged there were serious allegations against Chaudhary and Bhasin but there were not looked into by the committee before appointing them. He also alleged that Chowdary had influenced the investigation into businessman Ponty Chaddha whereas Bhasin was indicted by the CVC in 2013 for allegedly forging and tampering with important reports relating to the General Manager of the Indian Bank.

He had also alleged that Chaudhary, being a senior official of the income tax department, had not taken any action in the controversial Niira Radia phone tapping case. Centre had defended the appointments, saying they were chosen unanimously by a committee comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the leader of the Opposition.

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