Retired SC judge K T Thomas refuses to head Lokpal search panel

NEW DELHI: Retired Supreme Court judge KT Thomas has rejected a government offer to chair the panel tasked with short listing candidates for India’s first anti-corruption ombdusman, saying the panel will not be able to conduct an “independent search” as it is mandated to pick names only from a government-drawn list.

Justice Thomas’ refusal, which comes just three days after senior Supreme Court lawyer Fali S Nariman opted out of the search committee, casts a shadow over the United Progressive Alliance government’s hurried attempts to have the Lokpal in office before the country goes to polls.

Thomas said after Nariman recused himself from the committee, he had examined the rules and found that the panel was supposed to pick names from a list compiled by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

“I have come to realise that the work of the search committee is to pick out names of persons from the list provided by the central government,” Thomas said in a letter to V Narayanasamy, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office. “The committee cannot make any independent search to find out the most deserving persons to be included in the panel.”

Under the Lokpal Act of 2013, the DoPT is supposed to put together a list of candidates interested to be chairperson or members of the Lokpal. This list would then go to the proposed eight-member search committee, which would shortlist names and place them before the selection panel headed by the prime minister. The selection panel may or may not pick names suggested by the search committee.

“Once the search committee forwards the names, it is for the selection committee to select the persons for appointment as members of the Lokpal. In doing so, the selection committee is not bound to take any one from the panel prepared by the search committee,” Thomas said in his letter.