Prashant Bhushan is back in business, doing what he is best at: playing ping-pong with a largely silent government. Addressing the media on an unusually hot and muggy Delhi afternoon on Tuesday, the lawyer and social activist raised the heat a few notches further by questioning the “arbitrary and non-transparent process” through which a post as crucial as the CAG’s has been filled.

Bhushan said the appointment of a person like Shashi Kant Sharma, the defence secretary, will have “serious conflict of interest… since a major part of the CAG’s job is to audit defense purchases, which Sharma has been involved in for so many years”. This, the lawyer and Aam Admi Party leader said, “compromises the principle of 'institutional integrity'.”

Significantly, he also spilled the beans on a subject the government was till then still to open its mouth on: who will be the CAG? “Shashi Kant Sharma, (the) defence secretary, has been selected as the new comptroller and auditor general (CAG),” Bhushan announced in the press conference.

The government, too, said the same – only about three hours, and reams of speculation, later. It came only a day before Vinod Rai, arguably the best CAG the country has had till date, leaves office.

Also read: Why it could be wrong to name defence secretary as CAG

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Sharma has spent a long part of his innings as a bureaucrat in the defence ministry – first as joint secretary, then additional secretary and director general (acquisition) from 2003 to 2010, and after a brief stint in the finance ministry, became the defence secretary in 2011.

Raising the issue of Sharma’s alleged proximity to the UPA government, Bhushan said, “Such long period in the same ministry is unusual for a bureaucrat. The UPA has even granted him an extension after retirement. This indicates his proximity to the UPA bosses.”

During Sharma’s tenure, India made high-end weapons acquisition from different countries, and the government is in dock over purchase in some of these cases, as investigations are going on. As Kamal Kant Jaswal, president of Common Cause, and former secretary to the government of India, told Governance Now earlier: “If you appoint an officer who was a defence, petroleum or telecom secretary and make him CAG, he will have to review his own actions. How would you ensure objectivity when executive decisions taken during his own term are to be considered by him?”  

Conflict of interest

There is precedent to the appointment of defence secretary of CAG. Gian Prakash, the first IAS officer to hold the CAG office, was defence secretary before being appointed during the Janata regime in 1978. “During his tenure, defence audits were compromised to a certain extent. The defence audit officer of the CAG office had a tough time dealing with Prakash. (But) comments on defence audits kept reducing during his tenure,” a former deputy CAG, privy to the matter, said on conditions of anonymity.

In 1996, VK Shunglu was the industry secretary when he was appointed CAG and his successor, VN Kaul, was holding the post of the secretary in the ministry of petroleum. “Questions were raised at that time on their appointments because of conflict of interests,” the former deputy CAG said, adding however that there was no clear-cut proof of conflict of interest in these two cases.

A closely guarded secret

Referring to RTI query filed by some bureaucrat who did not wish to be named, Bhushan claimed appointment of the new CAG was kept a secret so that the government gets a “pliable” officer. Like in the past, the government went by ‘past conventions and practices’ to appoint CAG, he said.

He said the supreme court had, while quashing appointment of previous CVC PJ Thomas, appointed under similar circumstances, laid stressed on transparency as one of the criteria to while appointing people in constitutional posts. “This makes Sharma’s appointment illegal and liable to be struck down,” Bhushan said.