Indian Express: New Delhi: Saturday, October 25, 2014.
In a clear
departure from convention, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT)
Friday sought applications for the post of Chief Information Commissioner at
the Central Information Commission, which is the nodal agency for RTI queries.
Since the
post was created with the enactment of the RTI Act and the appointment of
Wajahat Habibullah in October 2005, this is for the first time that the
senior-most Information Commissioner is not being appointed to the top job.
The post has
been lying vacant since August 23 when Rajiv Mathur retired. And, according to
the norm followed so far, the next occupant should have been Vijay Sharma.
However, it is understood that the NDA government is not keen to appoint him.
The DoPT
circular notified Friday has sought applications till November 24. It added
that according to the RTI Act, the “CIC must be persons of eminence in public
life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social
service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance”.
The DoPT is
already processing the applications it has received for three vacancies for the
post of Information Commissioner for which several serving and retired
bureaucrats have also applied, as reported by The Indian Express on October 1.
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