Daily Bhaskar: New Delhi: Thursday, March 01, 2012.
The Central Information Commission (CIC) on Wednesday ordered disclosure of rules for appointment of joint secretary level officers and their seniors at the Centre, saying statutes which reportedly resulted in appointment of P J Thomas as Union Seceretary cannot be termed as Cabinet documents.
The CIC ruling came on an order on an RTI application in which activist Subhash Agrawal had sought to know details of the older rule for such appointments and subsequent changes in it along with the file noting.
The Centre had set a rule that only those IAS officers who had served at least three years at the Centre would be considered for appointment to the post of Joint Secretary and and ranks. As a result officials, who were facing vigilance cases in their states, could not come to the Centre for these positions.
The rule was reportedly changed allowing the officials who had been cleared of vigilance inquiry to come and serve at the Centre.
Approached by the RTI activist, the Cabinet Secretariat refused to make the documents public citing exemption clauses of the RTI Act which prohibits disclosure of cabinet documents.
When the matter came to Central Information Commission, Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said, "The framing of the rule and its subsequent relaxation cannot be classified as Cabinet Papers."
"Cabinet papers refer to only those papers which are placed before the Council of Ministers or any Committee of Ministers constituted by it for considering any particular proposal; framing of rules for empanelment of officers at the level of Additional Secretary, we understand does not require the approval of the Council of Ministers," he said ordering the disclosure of the files within 10 days.
Thomas had joined centre as Parliament Affairs Secretary in 2009 before his appointment as Telecom Secretary and subsequently as Central Vigilance Commissioner which was quashed by the Supreme Court on March 3, 2011.
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