The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday refused to grant relief to whistleblower Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi who sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into allegations of discrimination and irregularities in the selection process for a post on the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), for which his application was allegedly overlooked without reasonable cause. The civil servant had also accused the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) of attempting to cover this up by forging and fabricating records.
A division bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was hearing Chaturvedi’s appeal against the decision of the Uttarakhand High Court to decline his request for an investigation by the central agency.
Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde urged the apex court to set aside the high court’s order denying a CBI enquiry, saying, “This prayer is about criminality in the face of law…[The government] lied on an affidavit submitted to the court.” He added:
“The Central Administrative Tribunal will look into issues regarding eligibility – whether other candidates were eligible, conducting fresh selection process, etc. But as far as knocking out is concerned, as far as forgery & fabrication is concerned…”
However, the bench expressed its disinclination to interfere with the impugned ruling. Justice Manoj Misra told the senior counsel, “So your contention is that your application was manipulated to show that it was not received in time…But this...
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