P. J. Thomas (IAS Officer)

Polayil Joseph Thomas
14th Central Vigilance Commissioner
In office September 7, 2010 – March 4, 2011
Preceded by	Pratyush Sinha
Personal details
Born	January 13, 1951
Nationality	Indian

For the Indian pastor, see P. J. Thomas (pastor).

Polayil Joseph Thomas is an 1973 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from Kerala cadre. He was appointed as the 14th Chief Vigilance Commissioner of India, in an appointment that came under Supreme Court's review and later to be annulled by court as "non-est" in law. The appointment and the subsequent quashing led to several public debates with regard to the eligibility criteria for CVC's appointment , judicial activism , as well as the role played by mainstream media to hide several key facts that could establish his otherwise unblemished record in the civil services .

Early life and career

Thomas hails from a middle class family from Alappuzha district. A brilliant student right from his school days, Thomas is a post-graduate in Physics and later took his Masters in Economics . Thomas joined the Indian Administrative Service as one of the toppers in the Civil Services Examination in the year 1973. His elder brother, Johny Joseph, was also an IAS officer. As an IAS officer, Thomas has held important assignments in Kerala as the Chief Electoral Officer of the state, and as Secretary in Finance, Industry, Agriculture, Law and Justice and Human Resource Development Departments. As the chief electoral officer, Thomas was instrumental in introducing electronic voting machine in all stages of election. He was the founder director of the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode . He became the Kerala Chief Secretary in 2007 and moved to the central government as Secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs in January, 2009. Later he went on to become the Telecom Secretary.

The 3G Spectrum auction happened when Thomas was the Telecom Secretary and helped the government earn a revenue two times than what analysts predicted. The 3G and broadband spectrums jointly fetched 106,000 crore Indian rupees for the government against its estimates of 35,000 crore. The success of 3G Spectrum was a big boost to the government, when it was bearing the brunt from 2G Spectrum scam, the auction for which happened before Thomas assumed the office of Telecom Secretary. While in Telecom, Thomas opposition to Devas deal was decisive for the government. Thomas had stressed that the spectrum planned by the Department of Space is crucial to meeting the strategic requirements of nation and hence it should not be frittered away by giving it to private parties and that too not without following the process of auction to maximise the government revenue . In September 2010, Mr. Thomas succeeded Pratyush Sinha, a 1969-batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, as the CVC.

Allegations

Palmolein oil import

Main article: Palmolein Oil Import Scam

The import order was signed by P. J. Thomas, and the petitioners allege that the deal cost a loss of more than 2 cores to the exchequer.

Senior Congress leader Ummen Chandy however claims that the state had actually got a profit of 8.5 crore Indian rupees, and the CAG report in 1994 had only noted that the state could have gained Rs 11 crore profit if there had not been procedural lapses.

In 1998, the Supreme Court of India put a stay in the proceedings of the case, on a plea filed by late K. Karunakaran, requesting cancellation of the case. The case was pending with the Supreme Court for more than 12 years until the stay was lifted after K. Karunakaran's death in 2010. The long stay in this case eventually became detrimental to Thomas, as his appointment to the post of CVC was mired with controversies on whether the pending charge-sheet was discussed by the High Powered Committee. However, a section of the media observed that Thomas is not guilty of any wrong doing, because the LDF government in 2001 would not have otherwise appointed him to the highest post in the state civil service, Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala.

2G Spectrum cover-up allegation

Main article: 2G spectrum scam

Though the 2G spectrum scam happened before Thomas became the telecom secretary, one of the petitioners in the CVC appointment case alleged that Thomas had played a big part in the cover-up of the 2G spectrum allocation. The court judgment, however, dismissed the allegation. The 3G spectrum auction happened when Thomas was the telecom secretary, and delivered the government unexpected earnings of 38,543 crore Indian rupees (US $8.56 billion), twice the amount predicted by analysts.

Appointment as Chief Vigilance Commissioner

P.J. Thomas was appointed as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner in September 2010, by the President of India, on the recommendation of a High Powered Committee (HPC) headed by the Prime Minister of India. The selection of the new CVC was marked by controversies, after Sushma Swaraj, who was part of three-member selection committee, objected to the choice of Thomas, citing the pending charge-sheet in his name. A public interest litigation was filed, and the HPC recommendation came under Supreme Court's review.

On March 3 2011, the Supreme Court quashed the appointment of Thomas as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, noting that the HPC did not consider the relevant materials on the pending charge-sheet. Though Thomas resigned after the Court's observation, he has asked the President of India to seek a review petition on various grounds, including the constitutionality of the judgment. According to the lawyer for Thomas, Wills Mathews, the three judges' judgment on the CVC is not legally valid because Article 145 (3) says that the minimum number of judges required for interpretation of Constitution is five, which in effect makes the Supreme Court judgement null and void. . Thomas also fears whether the court has exercised jurisdiction on an issue in which it was not having the jurisdiction. He states, the Supreme Court has the power to initiate the proceeding for the removal of the CVC, only on a reference made by the President, and as such there was no reference of the President of India in the present matter. Thomas submitted that quashing the appointment resulted in miscarriage of justice not only to Thomas but to all civil servants of the country 'because the mere lodging of an FIR is sufficient to stop a honest officer from taking charge of the coveted post and shall spoil his career prospects'.