Thomas moves court to stay CVC appointment

P J Thomas, whose appointment as chief vigilance commissioner was cancelled by president Pratibha Patil  after the Supreme Court held it as illegal, has moved the Delhi high court seeking a stay on the appointment of his successor, former defence secretary Pradeep kumar who is to be sworn in today.

In a writ petition he filed yesterday, Thomas sought a direction to president Pratibha Patil to not issue any warrant of appointment as chief vigilance commissioner (CVC) to defence secretary Pradeep Kumar, without first deciding on his representation to her, against the judgment of the Supreme Court.

In his representation to the president on 16 March, Thomas had requested her to refer the decision of the apex court to a constitution bench. Thomas' appointment as central CVC had been cancelled on 15 March, 11 days following the apex court order.

Pradeep Kumar, 62 would be sworn-in as the new CVC by president Patil at a ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan on tomorrow.

According to Thomas' counsel Wills Matthews, the main ground (in the HC petition) was that the decision was delivered by a three-judge bench. He added that as per the  the constitution it should have been a five-judge bench.

He added that the warrant of appointment of Thomas was cancelled based on the said judgment and when the legality and the validity of the judgment in itself was in dispute it was the view of the petitioners that only after reaching conclusion on the legality and validity of the judgment, the respondent should go ahead with the appointment of new CVC.

A 1972-batch Haryana cadre IAS officer, Kumar was selected as the new CVC by the three-member committee comprising prime minister Manmohan Singh, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and home minister P Chidambaram.