Ready to challenge KV Chowdary's appointment as CVC in Supreme Court, says Ram Jethmalani

New Delhi: Senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Saturday criticised the Narendra Modi government's decision to appoint KV Chowdary as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner and said if the need be will challenge the appointment in the Supreme Court. Jethmalani wrote a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee to not approve the appointment.

Speaking exclusively to CNN-IBN, Jethmalani said, "CVC should be a man of unimpeachable integrity and Chowdary doesn't satisfy that description. There is evidence of enquiries against Chowdary and will provide evidence if the Prime Minister asks for it. The Prime Minister should ask me, I have written to the President, it's their duty to talk to me. The appointment is important and it's a subject to decision of court. This matter will be thrashed out in the Court."

The Central government had on Monday finalised the names for the chiefs of Central Information Commissioner Vijai Sharma and CVC and is likely to announce the same after the approval of President.

The appointment of CVC is essential for appointments to key posts like that of CBI chief.

Prime Minister Modi had chaired the meeting to decide the new names and it was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, party vice president Rahul Gandhi along with several RTI activists had questioned the delay in appointments of chiefs of CIC, CVC and Lokpal by the Modi government.

The CIC, which is mandated to resolve appeals and complaints filed against government departments or public authorities by information seekers under the Right to Information Act, has been working without a chief for over nine months, after the tenure of CIC Rajiv Mathur ended on August 22, 2014.

Sources said there are 203 applicants, including all seven information commissioners, for the post of the Chief Information Commissioner and 553 for the post of information commissioners. Under the RTI Act, the CIC has one chief and 10 information commissioners.

In CVC, the term of Central Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar had ended on September 28, 2014, while vigilance commissioner JM Garg completed his tenure on September 7. Sources said the government has received about 130 applications for the two posts.