The Supreme Court today refused to advance the date of hearing on a plea challenging the recent appointments of Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) K V Chaudhary and Vigilance Commissioner (VC) T M Bhasin.
A bench, comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra, did not allow the plea of senior advocate Ram Jethmalani that the matter needed urgent hearing prior to October 27, the date which has already been fixed.
"There cannot be an earlier date than this. We will try our best to hear the matter on October 27," the bench said.
The recent PIL, filed by NGO Common Cause through lawyer Prashant Bhushan, challenges the appointments on the grounds that the CVC and one VC do not have "clean record" and a "complete non-transparency" procedure was followed while appointing them.
Earlier, the court had sought the responses from the Centre, the CVC and the VC on the PIL.
Jethmalani had sought the court's permission to inspect the records filed by the government in this regard.
But the bench said the records "should come to us first. Records must be inspected by us first."
While Chaudhary was appointed as the CVC on June 6 this year, Bhasin took charge as the VC on June 11.
The PIL also alleged that their appointments were "arbitrary, illegal and in violation of the principle of institutional integrity", claiming that "the government did not even place the names of short-listed candidates in public domain."
The apex court, which has been hearing a similar petition filed by NGO Centre for Integrity, Governance and Training in Vigilance Administration, had on May 13 lifted its embargo and allowed the Centre to go ahead with the appointment of CVC and VC from among the candidates shortlisted by it.
In December last year, the apex court had asked the Centre to take its prior leave before going ahead with the appointments, for which 10 candidates each were shortlisted after scrutinising 130 applications.
