Was Thomas given clean chit by former CVC, asks apex court

The Supreme Court today asked the central government whether the then central vigilance commissioner gave the tainted PJ Thomas a clean chit so that he could become a secretary in the government.

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the central government whether the then central vigilance commissioner (CVC) gave the tainted PJ Thomas a clean chit so that he could become a secretary in the government.

HT Image

The observation was made by an apex court bench headed by justice SH Kapadia.

The court asked the government if it had prepared the panel for CVC's selection by merely downloading the biodata of the empanelled officers from their website or by going into the service file of each officer.

The court said: "We are saying this because we want to make some suggestions and lay down some guidelines" to bridge the gap between the CVC act and the court's directions in the Vineet Narayan case.

The observations following a public interest litigation challenging the appointment of Thomas as CVC alleging he faced a chargesheet in a criminal case involving import of palm oil in Kerala.