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The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has halted J P Nadda's attempt to assess the performance of the erstwhile chief vigilance officer of the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) Sanjiv Chaturvedi even for the period the former was not authorised to.
The relief for Chaturvedi came as part of a confrontation that began when Nadda had asked for the removal of Chaturvedi as the anti-graft officer at AIIMS. Chaturvedi was removed by the then health minister Harsh Vardhan.
CAT ordered the minister to not review Chaturvedi's performance for the period he was not in-charge of the ministry, till a tribunal decided on the matter. Such performance reports are critical in deciding the promotions of a government officer.
J P Nadda had wanted, records show, to appraise Chaturvedi's performance from April 1, 2014, though he had taken over as the president of AIIMS on December 5, 2014.
Chaturvedi's performance was appraised and approved by AIIMS director as "outstanding" (with a score of 9.5 out of 10) for the first three and a half months of 2014-15. The officer, who had unearthed several scams at AIIMS before being shunted out, was also appraised for his work between July 16 and December 16 by the then deputy director of AIIMS and the report forwarded to the institute's director. Chaturvedi had told CAT that the director sat on this assessment for more than a month and did not forwarded it to Vardhan, as required by law.
For the third stretch of his tenure at AIIMS from December 17, the officer said in view of his 27 days of leave, Nadda cannot qualify to oversee his appraisal. Rules mandate the accepting authority for the appraisal - the minister in this case - should have been overseeing the officer's performance for at least 90 days.
