The deliberations on the appointment of CVC PJ Thomas continue as politics on the issue has picked up as the main opposition party BJP on Friday asserted that govt was aware of the Palmolein case against Thomas while govt and the Congress said that all questions will be answered in the court.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani on Friday supported his colleague Sushma Swaraj’s stand against the appointment of CVC P J Thomas, saying he could not have been chosen for the post as he had cases pending against him.

Advani maintained that in the case of Thomas’ appointment as CVC, the government tried to do the same by insisting on his name despite zeroing in on a panel of three candidates.

“Sushma said that she will not accept his name as there is a case against him and the CBI is investigating…. How can we appoint him when a case is pending against him. She said I do not know the other two names you (government) have given but I have no objection if you accept any of the two,” Advani said.

Swaraj had registered her dissent in writing to the appointment of Thomas as the CVC as he was being investigated for his alleged complicity in the Palmolien import case.

Swaraj has said she will file an affidavit against the government in the Supreme Court as the UPA regime is “misleading” the apex court on this issue.

The Supreme Court was yesterday told by Attorney General G E Vahanvati that the Committee which selected Thomas was not aware of charges against him in the two-decade-old Palmolein oil import case.

Meanwhile, RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal circulated to media copies of the proceedings of the meeting of 3rd September last year which had appointed Thomas as CVC in which Swaraj had recorded her dissent.

There was also nothing in the documents to show that the issue of corruption case against Thomas was discussed in the meeting.

The documents also contained the bio data of Thomas and two other candidates-Bijoy Chatterjee and S Krishnan but Thomas’ bio data does not contain reference to the corruption case filed against him in the Palmolein import case.