Ex-IB chief among three for CIC job.

DNA: New Delhi:Friday, March 02, 2012.

In what may seem to be ironical, a former chief of top intelligence agency has been appointed as an information commissioner at the Central Information Commission by a government which proudly stakes claim of ushering in the transparency era by bringing the Right to Information Act.

Former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Rajiv Mathur is one among the three new information commissioners who joined the CIC on Thursday. Former environment secretary Vijai Sharma, who was presently working as an expert member at the low- profile National Green Tribunal, and Syndicate Bank’s former chairman and managing director Basant Seth are the other two.

CIC chief Satyanand Mishra administered the oath of office to the trio. At present, CIC has only five information commissioners apart from Misra.

While government officials believe, increased strength of information commissioners will strengthen the effectiveness of the RTI regime, Mathur’s appointment could eyebrows as was someone who worked in complete secrecy will now be sitting at the temple of RTI in a bid to provide relief to information seekers. IB is also an organisation that has been exempted from providing information under the RTI Act.

The names were cleared in a meeting of prime minister Manmohan Singh, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and union law minister Salman Khurshid. Interestingly, as per sources, the names were cleared without any much dissent.

Earlier there were reports that two information commissioners would be civil society representatives and not bureaucrats.