New Delhi, March 3 (IANS) The Congress Thursday admitted that P.J. Thomas’ appointment as Chief Vigilance Commissioner was an ‘error’ but rejected demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram who were part of the selection panel in the wake of the Supreme Court order quashing the appointment.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that it was wrong to politicise what is a legal verdict based on legal considerations and added that he disagreed with the generalisation that what is legally wrong is morally wrong.
‘Invalidation of the appointment is not a matter of malafide. The error has been set right by a legal judgment. It is a judgement by the highest court and binding on all. We bow before it,’ he said.
Replying to a volley of questions whether the prime minister and home minister should quit owning moral responsibility for the appointment of Thomas as CVC, Singhvi said there was no need.
‘Absolutely not,’ he said.
The prime minister and home minister were part of the panel to decide the appointment of CVC. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj, who was the third member of the panel, had objected to appointment of Thomas due to a pending corruption case against him.
Asked whether the apex court ruling was an embarrassment for the Congress and the government, Singhvi said an error had occurred and was the reason for the court’s intervention.
On questions about the prime minister’s statement that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion, Singhvi said the apex court has not spoken of malafide even indirectly.
Singhvi said that courts give hundreds of such judgements correcting legal errors by the central and the state governments and in no case were motives attributed.
The Supreme Court Thursday struck down the appointment of Thomas as the CVC, six months after he was appointed to the post, for his alleged involvement in a corruption case.
