Govt yet to take decision on appointment of information commissioners

Times of India: Lucknow: Thursday, March 21, 2013.

While eight out ten posts of information commissioners still vacant in the state information commission (SIC), the UP government is yet to take a final decision on their appointments. In a reply to an RTI query, however, the government has admitted that it is because of the Supreme Court's order of September 2012 that the nomination process has not taken off.

The appointments were put in abeyance after the apex court ruled that the information commissions were "judicial tribunals" performing functions of "judicial" and "quasi-judicial" nature and had trappings of a court and should be headed by a judicial mind. The court also specifically said that only sitting or retired chief justices of high courts and SC judges would be appointed as chief information commissioners at both the states and the Centre.

In response to an RTI query by Urvashi Sharma, the administrative reforms department has said it can not provide any records on the process of appointment of ICs in the state.

Principal secretary Prabhat Kumar Sarangi said final decision on appointment of ICs was still to be taken.

At present, ICs are appointed by the governor on the recommendation of a committee chaired by the chief minister and including the leader of opposition in the legislative assembly and a cabinet minister nominated by the chief minister.

As laid down under the RTI Act, persons of "eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance" should be appointed as ICs.

While the government hasn't made new appointments on vacant posts, pendency of RTI applications at the commission is heading northwards. By the end of February, 45,000 applications were pending at the commission, up from 35,000 pending in March last year.

UPSIC has a strength of ten ICs and a Chief Information Commissioner (CIC). The commission, at present, has only two ICs and the CIC hearing the cases. The four of the commissioners got their terms over in 2011, at different points of time. There were no appointments made against the vacancies at that time.

Another four got their terms over in July 2012. Though the RTI Act does not specify as to within how much time of an IC getting retired should the new appointment be made, considering that UP has huge RTI pendency, new appointments should be made soon.