While Constitutional experts said there was no rule barring a former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) from accepting a government job, the Congress party criticised Vinod Rai in this regard. While adding this was “too petty” an issue to be raised in Parliament.
The Congress’ aversion from formally raising the issue could also be because the party has in the past helped those who held positions such as Chief Justice of India or Chief Election Commissioner with Rajya Sabha seats and ministerial berths (see chart).
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Party spokesperson Manish Tewari told this newspaper: “One feels sad for Vinod Rai. The poor guy has been handed a lollipop by being appointed chairman of the Banks Board Bureau. He must have hoped to become President of the country, or a Governor, on the lines of TN Chaturvedi who had also batted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” (Chaturvedi, also then a former CAG, had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and accepted a nomination to Parliament in the 1990s).
Tewari accused Rai of presumptive, unverified and sensational claims in the CAG’s telecom spectrum allocation scam report. “My experience in cross-examining him in the Joint Parliamentary Committee convinced me he didn’t have a head for numbers, as he couldn’t substantiate the presumptive loss that the report had quoted,” he said. In its report on the scam, the CAG had put the presumptive loss to the country at up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore.
Constitutional expert Subhash C Kashyap said there aren’t any rules to prevent such an appointment. There have been instances of those having held judicial or quasi-judicial posts to have become Rajya Sabha members or even Governors. Even so, Rai’s appointment as head of an official selection panel after being CAG is a first.
In 2013, the then government had rejected the Election Commission recommendation for a ‘cooling off period’ whereby top bureaucrats would be barred for a while from joining politics or contesting polls after retirement. The government's view was that this wasn't in harmony with constitutional provisions.
