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sts to politicsDigvijaya·may accuse CAG of political ambitions but parties,

including Cong, do-field retired CECs,judges as MPs, governorsMANEESH CHIDBBER

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 18

INthe midst of the debate overthe "loss" caused to the excheq-uer due to the controversial al-lotment of 2G telecom licences,

Congress general secretary DigvijayaSingh accused Comptroller and Audi-tor General (CAG) Vinod Rai of hav-ing "political ambitions". Singh citedthe instance of one of Rai's predeces-sors - T N Chaturvedi - to buttresshis assertion of the CAG "misusing hisoffice" to SCore brownie points withthe Opposition.

Whether Singh is proven right orwrong, what he has achieved is a re-igni-tion of the debate over whether holdersof constitutional offices such as judges

»: ofthe Supreme Court and high courts,CAG, election commissioners etc,should accept post -retirement jobs, po-litical or otherwise, or enter politics.

Of course, Singh omitted to men-tion that his own party shares the blame,there being numerous examples off or-mer constitutional functionaries be-coming members of the Congress, someof them even going on to enter Parlia-mt'Oaton the party's mandate.

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Some of the leading examples offormer constitutional figures becomingcard-carrying politicians are formerCAG Chaturvedi (BJP), former chiefelection COmmissioner M S Gill (Con-gress), CJI-turned-Rajya Sabha MPRanganath Mishra (Congress) andSupreme Court jUdge-turned-LokSabha MP Baharul Islam (Congress),Punjab and Haryana High Court chiefjustice-turned-governor -turned- RajyaSabha MP Rama Jois (BJP) and Con-gress Rajya Sabha MP-turned SupremeCourt judge-tumed-Janata Party LokSabha MP-turned-Speaker KS Hegde.

The list doesn't include many othersWho held constitutional positions be-fore becoming governors on retirement.

TN CHATURVEDITILL Digvijaya Singh accused VinodRai of acting like him, many people, es-pecia1lythe post-Bofors generation, hadforgotten about CAG-turned-RajyaSabha MP-turned-governor 'ItilokiNath Chaturvedi. The 1950-batch, Ra-jasthan-cadre IAS officer, now 84, leadsa quiet life in Noida.

He held important posts includingthose of home secretary and educationsecretary in the Indira Gandhi govern-ment, before being appointed CAG bythe RajivGandhi regime in 1984. It wasduring Chaturvedi's tenure till 1990 thatthe CAG began an inquiry into the pur-chase of Bofors guns. The CAG wenton to make a scathing indictment of the ,Rajiv government. . ,-\-

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However, it was not his tenure inimportant positions, that as CAG orthe Padma Vibhushan he got in 1990for "service to the nation" (under the VP Singh regime) that broughtChaturvedi to the limelight. That camewhen in April 1991,just one year afterhis retirement as CAG, he joined theBJP. In July 1992, he got elected to theRajya Sabha. He was re-elected in July1998, but quit before the end of his .term after being appointed governorof Karnataka by the Atal Behari Vaj-payee government in 2002.

Incidentally, asked by reportersabout his views on the new governor,then Karnataka chief minister S M Kr-ishna had said he hoped "the objectivitythat he would have developed as theComptroller and Auditor General issomething which he can share with us".Krishna incidentally was in the RajyaSabha the same time as Chaturvedi.

Since Digvijaya Singh's statement,Chaturvedi has hit back, pointing outthat there are "no constitutional normswhich say that a former CAG or a for-mer Supreme Court judge cannot holda political post". "It is incorrect to attachmotiv~ to CAG, saying that the reportwas given to take political mileage,"Chaturvedi told the media, adding that~e wa.s, ho~ever, happy "that Digvi-jaya Singh 1S at last remembering me" .

While supporting current CAGVinod Rai, he also cited the case of oneof his predecessors, S Ranganathan,who had entered the Rajya Sabha withCongress support.

"The CAG report only points outhow the departments are functioning.The reports are discussed in the PublicAccounts Committee. But the 2G re-

.'port is being politicised and they (Con-gress leaders) are attacking the CAGand I am also dragged into this for thesame reason. If Mr Digivijaya Singh isso keen to protect constitutional func-tio~aries fr~m being appointed to post-retirement Jobs, he must prevail uponthe government, of which his party isthe biggest component, to amend theConstitution to bar such appointments.

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I am sure the Opposition too will sup-port this," he told The Indian Express.He added: "But judges must also becovered under this amendment."

However, there are many who feelChaturvedi wasn't in the right in aligningwith the BJP. "I am not going into hisactions as CAG. But his decision to join

. the party that benefited from the ad-verse report given by CAG under himand to enter the Rajya Sabha on thatparty's nomination was certainly uneth-ical. He is a good, honest man ... He isright in saying that there isn't a bar onholders of constitutional offices joiningpolitics or becoming Rajya Sabha MPsor governors ... But such people mustunderstand that there is a difference be-tween legality and propriety. Most suchjobs can be viewed as a reward for some-thing done in office," said Constitutionexpert and senior lawyer P P Rao.

He doesn't absolve political par-ties either, saying they must avoid field-ing such candidates, or the govern-ment, saying it mustn't offer thempost-retirement jobs.

MSGILLTO say that the appointment of former!AS officer Manohar Singh Gill as elec-tion commissioner along with G V GKrishnamurthy through an ordinanceon October 1, 1993, was controversialwould be an understatement.

The P V Narasimha Rao govern-ment turned the single-member Elec-tion Commission into a three-memberbody, with the chief election commis-sioner working in tandem with twoelection commissioners. A series of pe-titions were filed in the Supreme Courtagainst the appointments, includingone by then CEC T N Seshan. He ac-cused the government of trying to"erode his authority" because he wasnot ready to toe its line on postponingsome Assembly elections at the time.

The petitions were eventually disal-lowed, but not before Seshan had men-

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tioned "the extraodinary haste withwhich all this was done while the CECwas at Pune and the urgency with whichone of the appointees, Shri M S Gill,was called to Delhi by a special air-craft". Singh went on to become theCEC, a post he held for about five years(December 12, 1996, to June 13,2001).

In 2004, the Congress again set off acontroversy by bringing Gill into the Ra-jya Sabha from Punjab. Many Congressleaders of Punjab were said to have beenagainst his candidature. In 2008, Singhwent on to be given independent chargeas minister of state, youth affairs andsports. He was reappointed when theUPA returned to power in 2009, as wellas given a second straight term in theRajya Sabha in 2010. Eventually, in aJune 2011 reshuffle, he was dropped re-portedlyfor non-performance.

"Mr Gill should have never beenmade a minister, neither should he haveaccepted it. It was highly improper andunethical," says former CJI J SVerma. ''Ihave always said people holding consti-tutional positions must not accept post-retirement jobs that could be seen asreward for something that they mighthave done while in office ... I hope thegovernment amends the Constitutionto bar such appointments."

The ex-CJI adds that not just consti-tutional functionaries, but officers suchas the CBI director, central vigilancecommissioner, and Telecom Regula-tory Authority of India chief etc mustnot be allowed either to take up anyas-signment within the government or inthe private sector for at least two yearsafter retiring. "There is always the ques-tion of conflict of interest," he said .

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RANGANATH MISRAJUSTICE Misra, who died recently,had a few firsts to his credit. He was thefirst chairman ofthe National HumanRights Commission of India when itwas setup in 1993. Hewasalsothefirstformer CJI to join a political party -

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the Congress - to contest a RajyaSabha election (1998), which he won.The move raised some controversy. Af-ter the end of his Rajya Sabha term in2004, he was appointed chairman ofthe National Commission for Religiousand Linguistic Minorities, where hesubmitted a report in 2007 recom-mending a 15 per cent quota for mi-norities at national level. As a SupremeCourt judge, he had headed the much-criticised one-man inquiry commissionthat probed the anti-Sikh riots followingIndira Gandhi's assassination in 1984.

BAHARU[ ISLAMHIS is the first case in India's historyof a politician becoming a high courtjudge. He would retire as chief justice,then - within a space of eight months- become a judge of the SupremeCourt, then quit just 45-odd days be-fore his date of retirement, in time tocontest the Lok Sabha elections on aCongress ticket, and win.

Justice Baharul Islam, a prominentMuslim face of Assam, was elected tothe Rajya Sabha in 1962 and got an-other term in 1968. He resigned mid-way to become a judge of the then As-sam and Nagaland High Court, nowknown as Gauhati High Court, in 1972.On July 7, 1979, he became its chiefjustice. While he retired on March 1,1980, he was brought back from retire-ment to be appointed a Supreme Courtjudge on December 4,1980.

For some, however, the unusual ca-reer took its lowest dip when JusticeIslam gave up his Supreme Courtjudgeship 46 day before his retirementto conte t a a Congress candidatefrom Barpeta constituency, going onto win in a one-sided contest.

KSH GDEJUSTICE Hegde is possibly only theecond judge - after Justice Islam -

to have been an MP before being ap-

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pointed a judge. His career is again sim-ilar to Justice Islam's in that he eventu-ally returned to politics and became anMP again. Incidentally, Justice Hegde'sson - former Karnataka LokayuktaJustice Santosh N Hegde - is also aformer judge of the Supreme Court.

Justice Hegde was a Congress RajyaSabha MPfrom 1952 to 1957. In 1957,he resigned after his appointment as ajudge of the Mysore High Court (nowKarnataka HC), from where he wenton to become the first chief justice ofthe Delhi and Himachal Pradesh HighCourt. In 1967, he was elevated as ajudge of the Supreme Court ofIndia, apost he held till April 30, 1973, when heresigned to protest against the appoint-ment of a judge junior to him as CJI bythe Indira Gandhi government.

He then re-entered politics, con-testing and winning from BangaloreSouth constituency in the 1977 elec-tion on a Janata Party ticket. Within afew months, on July 21, 1977, after theresignation of then Speaker NeelamSanjiva Reddy to contest the presiden-tial poll, Hegde was unanimouslyelected speaker of the Lok Sabha, thefirst time a first-time Lok Sabha MPwas elected to the post.

M RAMAJOISJUSTICE Jois first hit headlines when,as a lawyer, he was a part of the legalchallenge mounted by opposition par-ties to the India government's actionof detaining all those against imposi-tion of Emergency under the draconianMaintenance ofInternal Security Act.

After Emergency, when the JanataParty government ruled at the Centre,Jois was elevated to judgeship in thehigh court of Karnataka. In May 1992,he went to the Punjab and HaryanaHigh Court as chief justice, but wouldstay in the post for just three months, re-igning over the elevation of Justice N

Venkatachala, who was junior to him, asa judge ofthe Supreme Court.

In June 2002, Justice Jois was ap-pointed governor of Jharkhand by thethen NDA government. From Jhark-hand, he was shifted to Bihar, a post heheld till October 2004, resigning afterthe UPA government replaced theNDA at the Centre. In June 2008, hewas elected to the Rajya Sabha on a BJPnomination.

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RAM KRISHNA TRIVEDIAN Uttar Pradesh-cadre IAS officerwho entered the service before Inde-pendence, Ram Krishna Trivedi roseto hold important positions in the gov-ernment, especially after his retirementin 1979.

As an !AS officer, some of the im-portant posts that he held were thoseof Uttar Pradesh home secretary, andsecretary, Department of Personneland Administrative Reforms in theGovernment ofIndia. Po t-retirement,hewasmade the CVCin October 1980,and the CEC in June 1982. Itwas duringhis tenure as CEC that the 1984 generalelections were held (in the wake of In-dira Gandhi's assassination) as werepolls in the terrorism-hit states of Punjaband Assam. He was appointed gover-

. nor of Gujarat on February 26, 1986,and remained there till May 2, 1990.

M FATHIMA BEEVITHE country's first woman SupremeCourt judge, Justice Beevi is amongthe couple of judges elevated to theapex court after their retirement fromhigh courts. Her appointment to theSupreme Court on October 6, 1989-over five months after her retirement asajudge ofthe Kerala HC-was, in fact,viewed as then prime minister RajivGandhi's olive branch to the Muslimcommunity in the aftermath of theShah Bano ca e controversy. She re-tired on April 29, 1992, but was laterappointed member ofthe NHRC.

In 1997, the Central governmentappointed her governor of Tamil Nadu,where she was at the centre of a politicalstorm over her decision to ignore es-tablished constitutional norms and ad-minister the oath of office to AlAD MKchief J Jayalalithaa as the chief ministerin May 2001 despite the fact that Jay-alalithaa couldn't contest the Assembly .elections due to her conviction in a cor-ruption case.-

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Upset with the decision, DMKchief M Karunanidhi, who had beenresponsible for Justice Beevi's appoint-ment as governor, lobbied hard for herremoval. However, she herself put in

(her papers after the NDA governmentdecided to recommend to the Presi-dent that she be recalled for not actingindependently and failing to dischargeher constitutional duties in the after--math of the controversial arrest of

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Karunanidhi and two Union ministersby the Jayalalithaa government.

VSRAMADEVIAN Indian Legal Service officer, V SRamadevi held important posts in theGovernment of India's Law Ministry

. before she was appointed secretarygeneral, Rajya Sabha, a post she heldbetween July 1,1993, and July 25,1997.In between, she was CEC for less than amonth, thereby becoming the onlywoman till date to hold this post. In July1997, she was appointed governor of

I .Himachal Pradesh, where she re-mained till December 1,1999. FromHimachal Pradesh, she was transferredto Karnataka and remained there till

) August 20, 2002.

TNSESHAN, AS the CEC from December 12, 1990,

to December 11, 1996, 1'NSeshanvir-tually bulldozed politicians of all sidesinto accepting his diktats, some of themvery controversial. However, he earneda lot of admirers for cleaning up the In-dian political scene. A year after his re-tirernent, in 1997, Seshan contested forthe post of President against Congressnominee K R Narayanan. While his

I foray into the electoral arena came acropper, with Seshan losing his secu-rity deposit, he tried again two yearslater, accepting the Congress's offer ofcontesting against BJP stalwart L KAdvani from Gandhinagar in the 1999Lok.Sabha elections. Advani's victoryby a margin of over 1.881akh votes left

1/ nobody in doubt about what peoplethought ofSeshan'svolte-face; his crit-ics viewed his entry into electoral poli-tics as an attempt to cash in on his posi-tive image among the voters.

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edly changed the way elections wereconducted in India lost much of hishalo after his failed attempts at elec-toral politics.

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