DoPT had doubts even after CVC cleared Thomas

CVC P J Thomas told the Supreme Court that he was deemed to be of impeccable integrity.

Central Vigilance Commissioner P J Thomas told the Supreme Court that he was deemed to be of impeccable integrity because he had been empanelled as Secretary in 2008 after he got vigilance clearance from the CVC. The Centre,too,cited this argument to defend its controversial decision to appoint Thomas as CVC.

However,file notings of the CVC and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT),accessed by The Sunday Express,reveal that two weeks after the CVC recommended closure (June 25,2007) of the case against Thomas,the DoPT noted that the Government should await the action taken in the palmolein case by the Kerala Government as well as the concerned court where the case was and still is in progress.

Thomas,while annexing copies of confidential CVC and DoPT correspondence along with his affidavit before the apex court,did not submit these file notings which expose the Governments doubts over his service record.

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Then CVC Pratyush Sinha had written that on re-examination of the case (against Thomas and another IAS officer Jiji Thomson),he found that the two officers acted in accordance with a legitimately taken Cabinet decision and no loss has been caused to the State Government and most important,no case is made out that they had derived any benefit from the transaction. On receipt of the CVCs letter,a two-page note was generated by the DoPT which clarified that it was the Government of Kerala which had sought to revive the (palmolein) case dropped by the previous state Government by seeking sanction for prosecution of these officers. It also said that the clarification sought by the Centre regarding the grounds for change in the stand of the state Government was still awaited.

While this noting was made by the DoPT on June 27,2007 as the file moved for clearances,on July 6,2007 the department noted on the file: As far as CVCs advice regarding X ( the case against Thomas and Thomson) for dropping the proceedings is concerned ,we may await action in the matter by the GOK (Government of Kerala) and the relevant court(s).

The next official movement on the Thomas case came at the time of his empanelment in 2008 and when the request reached the CVC. The palmolein case was again pulled out. On October 1,2008 the CVC recorded: According to the Commissions record,one closed case is reported against Shri Thomas in which a closure advice was tendered on reconsideration on 25.6.2007 (Commissions file linked).

However,when the Supreme Court demanded copies of all correspondence between the CVC and the DoPT connected to the empanelment of Thomas,it was discovered that the link file ( No F No 001/AIS/009) was no longer in its records. Commission officials said that destruction of old files of closed cases was a routine matter and thus,parts of the file could be reconstructed from the DoPT should the Supreme Court require the records.

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Thomas did not respond to queries from The Indian Express. His predecessor,Pratush Sinha,said he would not like to comment on the controversy.