CVC Search Commitee Member Also Applicant to Post, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Objects

Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar is in the search committee to select the next CVC and an applicant to the post himself. Chowdhury also objected to the procedure of selecting the next CIC, arguing that neither was he provided documents nor a search committee was in place.

New Delhi: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Congress’ leader in the Lok Sabha, last night objected to the procedure of selecting the country’s next Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), as well as the next Chief Information Commissioner (CIC).

A committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a majority decision, selected Sanjay Kothari, currently the secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind as the next CVC while Bimal Julka, currently an Information Commissioner, will be the next CIC.

Chowdhury, however, did not object to the names picked as CVC and CIC respectively.

In the case of CIC, Chowdhury’s contention was that not only was no search committee put in place to select the CIC but he was also not provided papers before the meeting so that he could have gone through the same.

For CVC, he raised objection to Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar being on the search panel as Kumar himself was one of the applicants for the post. In a note, Chowdhury argued that the presence of Kumar on the search panel despite being an applicant himself ‘vitiated the entire purpose of constituting the search committee’ and called for the formation of a new search committee.

PM Modi, according to reports, acknowledged Chowdury’s grounds of objections in both cases.

Besides the PM and Chowdhury, Tuesday’s meeting was attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, MoS in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Jitendra Singh, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and DoPT Secretary C Chandramouli.

Rajiv Kumar, Rajiv Gauba and Chandramouli were the three members of the CVC search committee.