Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday conceded he had made an “error of judgement” in the appointment of P J Thomas as Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC). Later, on being prompted by Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, he got up again and said he accepted “full responsibility” for the controversial decision that was struck down by the Supreme Court last week.
Not a single voice in the Treasury benches defended Singh. Grim and stone-faced, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, also the chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), merely stared into the middle distance.
Making a statement in the Lok Sabha on the issue, Singh read out a bland statement recounting the events which led to the choice of Thomas, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the Kerala cadre, as CVC by a three-member panel that consisted of the Prime Minister, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj.
The Prime Minister said Swaraj had put in a note of dissent over the choice of Thomas, but she was overruled and the President finally appointed Thomas. He also said the government accepted and respected the decision of the Supreme Court and would take into consideration the guidelines laid down by it while choosing the next CVC.
Swaraj expressed dismay at the statement, even as the rest of the Opposition rose in protest.
She wondered how the Prime Minister could have left out from the statement his acceptance of responsibility for the decision, something which he had already said outside Parliament, at a press conference in Jammu on Friday. She also pointed out that, on the basis of that statement, she had already said that the matter rested there and the country should move forward. “I was expecting you to at least repeat what you said in Jammu,” she said as her collegues chanted, “Shame, shame”.
At this, Singh rose again and said he had no hesitation in repeating in the House what he had said in Jammu. “I have no hesitation in repeating what I said in Jammu. Obviously, there was an error of judgement. I accept full responsibility for it,” he said.
The Left parties were not satisfied with his statement and staged a walk-out. Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Basudeb Acharia said the Prime Minister should explain the circumstances in which the government had made the decision.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, had said on Friday that the statement by Singh was not enough and he needed to explain more. He said the Prime Minister had to clarify if he had been misled or whether he had deliberately chosen to be misled.
Oddly, Swaraj repeated on Monday what she had already said about putting the matter to rest.
The Prime Minister will have to make a similar statement in the Rajya Sabha on the issue later this week. He is bound to come under pressure from the BJP and other Opposition parties. On Monday, he was spared that indignity because the Upper House was adjourned after obituary references to veteran Congress leader Arjun Singh, who died last week.
The name of Thomas figured in the palmolein import case, relating to the period when he was food secretary in Kerala. He went on to become chief secretary and then Union telecom secretary after his name was cleared by the Central Vigilance Commission.
