The Hans India: Telangana: Saturday,
April 22, 2017.
Four
Information Commissioners of the AP-Telangana Information Commission are
heading home as the Supreme Court dismissed their SLP challenging the AP High
Court judgment that quashed their appointments.
The Supreme
Court on Thursday dismissed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by four
Information Commissioners (ICs) of the Andhra Pradesh Information Commission
(APIC) challenging the 2013 order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court quashing
their appointments.
The SC
dismissed their SLP after staying the HC order in 2013. The ICs continued in
their posts and have completed more than four years of their 5-year tenure. As
their SLP is now dismissed, they have to head home.
In 2012, the
then Congress government in the unified state of Andhra Pradesh began the
process of appointing Information Commissioners to the APIC after a couple of
writ petitions were filed in the HC. The writ petitions were filed because of
the impending vacancies in the APIC and that the constitutional and statutory
obligations of the APIC cannot be discharged unless the commissioners were
appointed.
The
government of the day went ahead with the selection of 8 persons for the post
of ICs and sent those names to the Governor. As per sec 15(3) of the RTI act, a
committee consisting of the Chief Minister, Leader of the Opposition in the
Assembly and a Cabinet Minister recommends the names to the Governor.
The Governor
approved four names, and asked the selection committee to reconsider the
recommendation of the following four persons as he felt that their selection appeared
to attract the infirmities under Sec 15(6) of the RTI act: Varre Venkateswarlu;
Lam Thanthiya Kumari; Imtiaz Ahmed; and Vijaya Nirmala.