Telegraph India: New Delhi: Thursday, November
15, 2018.
The Narendra Modi government appears to
have thrown a shroud of secrecy around the appointment of the central
information commissioners, denying an RTI applicant even some of the basic
information it had been willing to reveal last year.
Citing Section 8(1)(i) of the Right to
Information Act, 2005, the department of personnel and training on Wednesday
refused to disclose even the number of applicants for the vacancies advertised
in July this year.
When RTI activists had sought similar
information in January last year relating to an advertisement for the
appointment of two information commissioners at the Central Information
Commission, the department had revealed the number of applicants.
But it had at that time too cited Section
8(1)(i) to refuse to reveal their names and the process being followed to
analyse or short-list the applications.
Section 8(1)(i) says that information can
be denied in the instance of “cabinet papers including records of deliberations
of the council of ministers, secretaries and other officers: provided that the
decisions of council of ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the
basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision
has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over: provided further that
those matters which come under the exemptions specified in this section shall
not be disclosed’’.
Applicant Anjali Bhardwaj said she had
sought the information because of the changes the government was trying to
introduce to the salaries and other terms and conditions of the information
commissioners’ service without Parliament’s approval.
Sub-section (5) of Section 13 of the RTI
Act, 2005, says the salaries, allowances and other terms of service for the
central information commissioner and the information commissioners will be the
same as those of the chief election commissioner and the election commissioners.
But two advertisements since July say
that the salary, allowances and other terms of the information commissioners’
service “shall be as may be specified at the time of appointment of the
selected candidate’’.
The government had during Parliament’s
monsoon session tried to introduce an amendment bill that sought to empower the
Centre to decide the tenures, salaries and allowances of the chief information
commissioner and the information commissioners of the central and state
commissions.
The draft bill was circulated among Rajya
Sabha members but the government did not introduce the legislation in the face
of combined pressure from the Opposition and RTI users.
The critics saw in the draft an attempt
by the government to control the information commissioners at the Centre and
the states by making itself the direct authority on the terms and conditions of
their service.