PIL filed in Supreme Court challenging appointment of the new CAG; Court directs matter to be listed after summer vacations

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Shashi Kant Sharma as the Comptroller and Auditor General. The PIL has been filed by Advocate M.L. Sharma who mentioned the matter today before a Division Bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and Dipak Misra. The Court has directed the matter to be listed after summer vacations..Sharma has claimed in his petition that the new CAG “was joint secretary, additional secretary and director general (acquisition) in the defence ministry between 2003 and 2010. Therefore, he has worked in the Defense Ministry for almost 10 years when all-important Defense acquisitions were made”. Therefore, Sharma has claimed that the appointment of the new CAG would result in conflict of interest..The petition further states that:.“Because an interested person cannot be appointed an auditor to audit his own accounts report, work and performance what they did during his previous tenure. Various multi billion defense deals including the Chopper scam deals are pending for auditing before the CAG. Therefore Mr. Sharma , who was the defense secretary since last 10 years, cannot be appointed as a CAG to audit his own deal in any manner”..He has also claimed in the petition that since the new CAG has a science background and no knowledge of accounts and audit, he cannot be appointed as a CAG as he does not possess the basic qualification for being an auditor..The Court directed the matter to be listed for July 1, 2013..Sharma had earlier filed a PIL against the arbitrary allocation of coal blocks. This eventually led to the Supreme Court coming down heavily upon the CBI for sharing details of investigation with the executive. He had also filed a PIL challenging FDI in multi brand retail which was dismissed by the Court.