Thaindian News

New Delhi, March 3 (IANS) Launching an attack on the prime minister after the apex court quashed P.J. Thomas’ appointment as chief vigilance commissioner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday said Manmohan Singh had a “direct role” to play in his selection and demanded that “accountability be fixed”.

BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said the country was entitled to know the coalition compulsion behind the appointment of Thomas.

“The appointment of CVC was done by this government in which the prime minister has a direct role to play. The prime minister must introspect whether he was misled or he intentionally and deliberately allowed himself to be misled. In either case, the accountability has to be fixed,” Prasad said.

“Now that the Supreme Court has quashed the appointment of the CVC and that too on the ground that relevant information relating to his involvement in a corruption case was ignored while making the appointment, the country is certainly entitled to know on what benchmark the prime minister is going to judge himself,” Prasad said.

Earlier, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, raised the issue in the upper house saying the apex court had passed “serious strictures against the government”.

Outside, he said the prime minister should answer the nation whether he was misled by his officials or did he chose to be mislad by ignoring the charges against Thomas.

Prasad said the decision involved the moral responsibility of the prime minister, his government and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

“We await the response of the prime minister,” he said.

Prasad said integrity and independence were the most important qualities for appointment to the post of CVC and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj had strongly objected to Thomas’ selection because of pending criminal case.

He said Sushma Swaraj (of the BJP), who was a member of the panel to decide the name of CVC, was overruled when Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Thomas had been cleared.

Apart from Sushma Swaraj and Chidambaram, the selection panel included Manmohan Singh.

Prasad said it was indeed “surprising and curious that both the prime minister and the home minister insisted that the appointment had to be made on the date of the meeting itself and that it will be only P.J. Thomas”.

He said it was evident that the government knew that appointment of Thomas would give rise to a controversy because of his tainted record.

“Obviously, there was a design behind this determination. The surrounding circumstances are too suspicious,” he said.

Prasad said Thomas as the telecom secretary had sought the opinion of the law ministry on the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) examining the 2G spectrum issue.

“What was exposed in the CAG report is too well known. Obviously, the government wanted a pliant CVC because the 2G scam was under investigation by the CBI,” Prasad said.

Another BJP MP, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, said the Supreme Court verdict was the “biggest blow to the UPA government”.