PJ Thomas

New Delhi, Nov. 30: The Centre today hinted at the exit of central vigilance commissioner (CVC) P.J. Thomas after the Supreme Court repeatedly wondered how he will function effectively in the face of corruption allegations.

The court asked if Thomas, who was telecom secretary when 2G spectrum was allotted, could objectively monitor a CBI probe into the scandal. Thomas has also been accused in a palm oil import case in Kerala.

Seeking to dispel the apprehension, CBI lawyer K.K. Venugopal offered to keep Thomas out of monitoring and supervisory roles. Two other vigilance commissioners could oversee the probe, Venugopal told the court.

Reacting to the CBI proposal to keep Thomas out, solicitor-general Gopal Subramanium said: “It may not be necessary.”

The comment by Subramanium, who is representing the department of telecom, is being seen as a suggestion that Thomas could perhaps resign from his post shortly.

Thomas, the head of the top anti-corruption watchdog in the country, has been under pressure to quit since last week when the Chief Justice of India questioned his appointment and demanded that the government explain whether he fulfilled the criteria of “impeccable integrity”.

Union home minister P. Chidambaram refused to comment on reports that Thomas, who had met him yesterday, had offered to resign.

Chidambaram, who was part of the three-member committee that approved Thomas’s appointment, said: “How do I know what he has offered and what he has not offered? I made no suggestions and I received no offer. A number of people meet me. I will not comment on the CVC.”

Asked about the BJP’s charge that he had made the “wrong selection”, Chidambaram said: “I have no comments on the appointment procedure.”

Chidambaram said all questions related to the CVC should be directed to the minister of state for personnel.

While raising questions on Thomas, the Supreme Court said the Niira Radia tapes reminded it of Watergate.

“This reminds us of the Nixon tapes, Watergate,” Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly said.

“We have been trying to clean rivers from pollution for over 28 years now. But this pollution is mind-boggling,” Justice G.S. Singhvi, sitting alongside Justice Ganguly, added.

The bench was hearing a public interest petition that wanted the court to monitor the probe.

“The CBI functions under the CVC. As telecom secretary, he had justified the allocation of 2G spectrum. Now that it is being investigated and scrutinised, it will be difficult for him to be objective,” Justice Singhvi said.

An NGO called the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, through counsel Prashant Bhushan, has proposed that a team of officials with impeccable integrity and investigative skills should monitor the CBI probe and brief the court on the progress.

“Otherwise, this case will also go the way of the hawala case,” the counsel said, referring to a scandal in the 1990s. The “half-baked” chargesheets fell through in that case and all the accused were acquitted, he pointed out.

Resuming the arguments, Bhushan said the Radia tapes, featuring purported conversations she had with journalists, industrialists and politicians, should be made public.

Of the 5,800 conversations, only around 100 odd have been made public so far, he said. “There is a fear that these would be destroyed… that they would never see the light of the day,” he said, drawing a parallel with the Adarsh housing case in which files have disappeared.

He said that the people of the country had a right to know how a few corporate houses, working through their lobbyists, were virtually running the government. “The 100-odd conversations that have come out show how this country is being run… how policy is being subverted… fixed by MPs who are acting as lobbies for corporate houses,” Bhushan said.

“Privacy rule will only apply if they are in the nature of purely private conversations and have no bearing on public interest,” he said, quoting the Right to Information Act.

He also read out a portion of the purported conversations in which Radia seemed to be trying to elicit information from a journalist on how to fix the top court in the Reliance case. The journalist was heard saying that he would get it done through his son, a lawyer.

Subramanium contested the argument to make public the tapes. “There are grave dangers when we place them in public domain…. We have to protect institutions, Parliament and the judiciary.”

The court directed the telecom department and the income tax department to give their views on whether the tapes should be kept in a sealed cover in the court to pre-empt its destruction.