AP govt appoints eight Information Commissioners.

IBNLive:Wednesday, February 01, 2012.

Hyderabad, Jan 31 (PTI) The Andhra Pradesh government tonight appointed eight Information Commissioners under the Right to Information Act (RTI) after keeping the posts vacant for more than 14 months. Surprisingly, the government chose a serving IPS officer for one of the IC posts while two other retired bureaucrats too were appointed. A meeting of the selection committee comprising Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Deputy CM C Damodar Rajanarasimha and Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu "unanimously" approved the names of eight candidates for the IC posts, an official press release said. Subsequently, Governor E S L Narasimhan issued a notification appointing the eight Information Commissioners, it added. Those appointed as ICs are: C Madhukar Raj, IFS (Retd), S Prabhakar Reddy, IPS (Retd), P Vijaya Babu, Editor of Andhra Prabha Telugu daily, Varre Venkateswarlu, social worker, Lam Tantiya Kumari, advocate (daughter of former deputy chief minister Koneru Ranga Rao), S Imtiaz Ahmed, retired civil judge, M Vijaya Nirmala, academician and M Ratan, currently Director General of Police (Vigilance and Enforcement). Ratan is due for retirement from service at the end of April this year. Following his appointment as IC, Ratan is expected to seek voluntary retirement, government sources said. The IPS officer was chosen for the IC post as he belonged to the Backward Community from the Telangana region, they said.