New Delhi: A controversy has broken out over the appointment of an Additional Director in CBI after Government and Central Vigilance Commission(CVC) locked horns over considering an officer whose track record was under question.
Archana Ramasundaram, a 1980-batch IPS officer from Tamil Nadu, was appointed as the Additional Director last week by the government after it apparently ignored anti-corruption watchdog CVC`s repeated recommendation of a particular officer.
The government also went by the opinion of the Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran in picking Ramasundaram when he opined that the Government had "sufficient discretion to reject" if a single name is recommended, government sources said on Monday.
Officials said that the Appointments` Committee of Cabinet (ACC) had asked for names from CVC, which decided to send only one name for the post despite receiving a panel of names of three officers from the Department of Personnel and Training(DoPT).
Besides Ramasundaram, the others named in the panel by the DoPT were Ashok Kumar, a 1982-batch IPS officer from Tamil Nadu and RK Pachnanda, a 1983-batch IPS officer of West Bengal.
The CVC chose a name from out of the three and sent it to the ACC which had rejected it, saying that there was "dispute" over the officer and that seniority could not be ignored.
The ACC, which is headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asked the CVC to follow the rules and submit a complete panel before the Committee.
However, the CVC sent the name of the same officer and the Government rejected it again. The government summoned the panel from the DoPT and selected Ramasundaram for the post.
Earlier, the Solicitor General had said that since the issue relating to the appointment of a high ranking officer in CBI the principles laid by Supreme Court in a judgment in 2011 would be applicable.
"Institutional integrity should be a primary consideration in making such an appointment keeping in mind not only the eligibility criteria but also the fact that the CBI has to perform an important investigative function," he had said in his opinion.
He felt that in the light of the wide discretion vested upon it by law, the central government can choose a name from among a panel of names.
In the event of only a single name being recommended by the selection committee, the government has sufficient discretion to reject such a name for cogent, reasonable, bonafide and non-arbitrary reasons which should be able to stand judicial scrutiny, he said.
