Delhi HC asks for Centre’s response
The Delhi high court on Wednesday directed the Centre to file its response on two public interest litigation (PILs) challenging the appointment of former defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma as the Comptroller-and-Auditor-General of India (CAG) on the ground of conflict of interests.
A bench headed by acting Chief Justice B.D. Ahmed directed the Centre to file its response by August 8.
The bench was hearing two separate petitions filed by nine persons — former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami, former Chiefs of Naval Staff Admiral R.H. Tahiliani and L. Ramdas, former deputy CAG B.P. Mathur, Kamal Kant Jaswal, Ramaswamy R. Iyer, E.A.S. Sarma, all former secretaries of various government ministries, former Indian Audits and Accounts Service officer S. Krishnan, former IAS officer M.G. Devasahayam and advocate M.L. Sharma.
The PILs allege that the Union of India has arbitrarily appointed the CAG, keeping aside all the established practices provided by the Supreme Court in its judgment relating to appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas and the appointment made in the Punjab Public Service Commission. “This person (Shashi Kant Sharma) has got the highest degree of conflict of interest than anybody else in the country, as he happens to be the key person in all the defence procurements from 2003 till the date of his appointment as CAG,” advocate Prashant Bhushan, who is appearing for the petitioners, contended. He also said that defence procurement deals are usually the subject matter of auditing by the highest accounting body and, moreover, the CBI has also registered a case in relation to one such defence deal undertaken during Mr Sharma’s tenure as the defence secretary.
The petitioners have sought a direction to the Centre to “frame a transparent selection procedure based on definite criteria and constitute a broad-based non-partisan selection committee, which after calling for applications and nominations will recommend the most suitable person for appointment as CAG”.
The PILs contend that Mr Sharma’s appointment was made “without any system for selection, without any selection committee, any criteria, any evaluation and without any transparency”.
The defence deals referred to in the petitions include procurement of 12 VVIP copters from Anglo-Italian firm AgustaWestland for the Air Force at a cost of `3,500 crores, which according to Italian investigators involved alleged kickbacks of at least `350 crores.
The controversial Tatra truck deal was also cleared by Sharma, the petitions submitted.
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