Former CVC PJ Thomas to file review petition

Former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) P J Thomas will file a review petition in Supreme Court against its verdict quashing his appointment as the country’s corruption watchdog chief, reports said on Saturday.

Thomas will seek review of SC decision quashing his appointment. He wants a Constitution bench of Supreme Court to hear his petition.

Meanwhile, the Kerala government on Thursday released a letter to the media that shows that they had indeed intimated Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan about the accusations faced by Thomas.

The letter indicates that the Kerala administration had informed the Centre of the cases and said that Thomas could not be considered for the post of the country?s top graft watchdog, media reports said.

The letter was released after a spat between the Chavan and Kerala Chief Minister V S Achutanandan over the CVC controversy.

Facing heat over the Prime Minister virtually blaming the Department of Personnel and Training, headed by him at that time, for the CVC?s appointment, Chavan had apparently said that the Kerala government had given Thomas a clean chit.

Achutanandan had taken offence at the statement and went on to say that the Maharashtra Chief Minister was ?lying? and trying to “hide his fault”.

“Though the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had owned responsibility for the error of judgment, Chavan is now trying to blame the Kerala government to hide his fault in recommending the name of Thomas for the CVC post,” Achuthanandan said.

Chavan responded by saying that his statement had been ?misquoted and twisted? by the Kerala Chief Minister.

“All I had said in my press conference in Pune was that Thomas was appointed Chief Secretary by Government of Kerala,” he said.

Thursday?s exchanges came after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh passed the buck on to a department headed by Prithviraj Chavan for the appointment of P J Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner.

The PM had said he “accepts and respects” the Supreme Court judgement nullifying the appointment of Thomas and accepted gull responsibility for the erroneous decision, before virtually saying that he was misinformed by Chavan?s department.
In a historic judgement on Mar 3, the Supreme Court struck down Thomas? appointment, dealing a major blow to the image of the embattled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The court acted on a petition challenging appointment of Thomas as the country’s chief corruption watchdog since his past records on corruptions issues were not clean.

The court also found fault in the committee of the Prime Minister that appointed Thomas and said the government should have gone beyond his bio-data, where Thomas did not mention his implication in an edible oil import scam.