Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Wednesday, May 16, 2012.
Civil society lost its place in the information watchdog, the Central Information Commission (CIC), thanks to Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj’s insistence on her candidate.
A committee headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had selected two civil servants Rajiv Mathur and Vijai Sharma and Swaraj’s candidate Basant Seth as information commissioners.
AN RTI reply has now revealed that Seth, and Swaraj’s other choice IAS officer Raghu Menon, were not in the list of nine persons short-listed by a screening committee headed by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth.
The committee had suggested three panels, each consisting of three names. The first two panels were of civil servants and third of civil society members.
As Swaraj came up with her own panel, the committee agreed to select a name each from first two panels. No one from the third panel of two journalists, Sona Jha and Dr Anuradha Verma, and social activist S Venkatesh Nayak was selected.
Once the only civil society member Shailesh Gandhi retired later this year, the CIC will become a club of retired government functionaries.
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