The Supreme Court lifted its embargo last week and permitted the Centre to go ahead with the appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner and a Vigilance Commissioner from the list of candidates shortlisted by it. Both the posts are lying vacant for the past few months and the apex court had on December 17, 2014 asked the government to take its prior "leave" before going ahead with the appointment for which 10 candidates for each post have been shortlisted after scrutinising 130 applications received in response to the advertisement issued.

Regarding the appointment of CVC, the matter has come up time and again, even in Parliament. The government was on the job. But there were some issues beyond the control of the government, the Minister of State for Personnel told reporters.
"The appointments of chief and vigilance commissioner in the CVC will be done very soon," Union Minister Jitendra Singh said. "There was a court case and recently we had appeared before the court where all the records were also summoned. Now the court has given its go ahead. I am sure very soon the rest of the process will also be completed," Singh said.

The government has been criticized by the opposition for not having CVC, even when they are aware that there is stay from the apex court. Now that the apex court has given the go ahead the appointments are expected soon. Once the appointment of CVC is done the transparency of the functioning of the government will be more visible.

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is headed by a Central Vigilance Commissioner and has two Vigilance Commissioners. Central Vigilance Commissioner, Pradeep Kumar and Vigilance Commissioner, J M Garg have completed their term on September 28 and September 7 last year and got retired. Rajiv, a former Director General of Central Industrial Security Force, is acting as interim chief of the transparency watchdog.

By Premji