Govt appoints 2 Vigilance Commissioners

NEW DELHI, MARCH 3: V S Mathur, a former special secretary in the Union Home Ministry and P. Kotaiah, former chairman of National Bank fo...

NEW DELHI, MARCH 3: V S Mathur, a former special secretary in the Union Home Ministry and P. Kotaiah, former chairman of National Bank for Rural Development, have been appointed Vigilance Commissioners in the Central Vigilance Commission.

Kotaiah had served NABARD for over five years as chairman before retiring in December last year. It is learnt that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had put in a word for him.

With the induction of Mathur and Kotaiah, the strength of the CVC has gone up to three, including Chairman N Vittal.

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Sources in the government say that the appointments are in conformity with the assurance given to the Supreme Court that members would be drawn from other categories. While Vittal belongs to the IAS, Mathur and Kotaiah bring with them experience in criminal investigation and finance respectively.

There is a possibility of a fourth vigilance commissioner being picked up from the legal side.

A senior official in the PMO said the appointments had been cleared bythe government after following the laid-down procedure last week in the CVC Bill. He admitted that until the fate of the Bill is decided by Parliament, uncertainty would persist.

Representatives of the Congress and others in the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee, which recently discussed the CVC Bill, made it clear that they were opposed to some of the proposals, including supervision by the CVC of the CBI. They mentioned several areas of their objections.