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The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to quash the appointment of Shashi Kant Sharma as Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, saying no material has been brought on record to substantiate the plea questioning the "integrity" and "competence" of the CAG.
"Thus, neither on integrity nor on competence, is there any material to substantiate the plea of the petitioners that the respondent No. 2 (CAG) was not eligible for appointment as the CAG," a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Vibhu Bakhru said.
The bench, in its 74-page judgement, considered the fact that there was no criminal case against the CAG and moreover, no "disciplinary proceeding" is pending against him.
"There is no disciplinary proceeding pending against him. There is no criminal case pending against him. There is only a supposition on the part of the petitioners that as he had dealt with defence procurements in his various capacities in the past, there might be a conflict of interest when he prepares audit reports in respect of the defence procurements. This is merely a surmise, conjecture and presumption on the part of the petitioners insofar as the audit report in respect of purchase of helicopters is concerned," it said.
It dismissed two separate PILs, filed by former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and eight other eminent persons and by advocate M L Sharma in personal capacity.
It said Sharma, a 61-year-old 1976-batch Bihar cadre IAS officer, has an unblemished service record and his "appointment does not violate the principles of institutional integrity nor was the appointment arbitrary".
"There is nothing on record to suggest that respondent 2 (Sharma) does not have a comprehensive knowledge of the entire administration. As pointed out by the Centre, he has had about four decades of administrative experience in different departments of the Government. He has had an unblemished record and, therefore, the integrity aspect cannot also be doubted. Thus, neither on integrity nor on competence, is there any material to substantiate the plea of the petitioners that respondent 2 was not eligible for appointment as CAG," the bench said.
One of the PILs, filed through lawyer Prashant Bhushan, had raised the issue of conflict of interest on the ground that the CAG, during his stint in the Defence Ministry, had been part of various defence deals which may come up for CAG's scrutiny.
The court trashed the plea as merely a "surmise, conjecture and presumption" and said that so far as the audit report in respect of purchase of VVIP helicopters is concerned, it has already been tabled in Parliament.
"With regard to conflict of interest, it may be pertinent to note that any civil servant would have served in various departments and ministries of the government and any of those ministries could be the subject matter of an audit report of the CAG. Merely because a person has served in those departments would not constitute a ground for raising the plea of conflict of interest," it said.
It further said that for the foregoing reasons, "we are of the view that a writ of quo warranto does not lie for quashing the appointment" of the respondent 2 to the post of CAG.
"The appointment did not, in our view, violate the principles of institutional integrity nor was the appointment arbitrary. As such, the writ petitions are dismissed," the court said.
"We are of the view that a writ of quo warranto does not lie for quashing the appointment of the respondent No 2 (CAG) to the post of CAG. The appointment did not, in our view, violate the principles of institutional integrity nor was the appointment arbitrary. As such, the writ petitions are dismissed," it said.
The PIL said that the present CAG had earlier had a role in the procurement of 12 VVIP choppers from Anglo-Italian firm AgustaWestland for the Indian Air Force at a cost of Rs 3,500 crore, which according to Italian investigators involved alleged kickbacks of at least Rs 350 crore.
It was also alleged that the controversial Tatra truck deal was cleared by Sharma.
Dealing with the allegations, the court said, "The only reference in the CAG report with regard to the purchase of helicopters for VVIPs was to be found in two places which we have outlined above and, none of them, in our view, could be regarded as an indictment or implying ineligibility of respondent 2 (Sharma).
"Thus, neither on integrity nor on competence, is there any material to substantiate the plea of the petitioners that the respondent 2 was not eligible for appointment as the CAG.
The manner in which the President functions in appointing the CAG is also clear-cut inasmuch as he acts on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers."
The bench further said there is no prescribed criteria as to what qualifications a person must possess before he is considered for the post of the CAG.
"There is nothing on record to suggest that the respondent No. 2 does not have a comprehensive knowledge of the entire administration. As pointed out by the respondents, the respondent No. 2 has had about four decades of administrative experience in different departments of the government.
"He has had an unblemished record and, therefore, the integrity aspect cannot also be doubted," the court said.
Besides N Gopalaswamy, 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 and former IAS officer M G Devasahayam were the co-petitioners.
The plea had also 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 would recommend the most suitable person for appointment as CAG".
