Times of India: New Delhi:
Thursday, April 11, 2013.
RTI activists
Aruna Roy and Shailesh Gandhi have sought a stay from the Supreme Court on its
decision directing information commissions to appoint a legally trained member.
The two activists in the writ petition have argued that work has come to a
standstill in five of the 28 commissions in the country and was impacting the
implementation of the act adversely.
In September,
2012, the SC had directed all information commissions to work in benches of two
members and ordered that each bench should comprise of a legally trained
member. "Presently the judgment has created a lot of uncertainty and some
commissions have stopped working in the absence of clarity of how they can
function in view of the judgment. Commissions which have stopped functioning
are Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh and Goa," the activists
said.
They also
argued that there were no commissioners in Madhya Pradesh and Goa and
governments were not sure about the fresh appointments they could make.
"Even in other states, the process of appointing information commissioners
has almost come to a halt. An example is the information commission of Uttar
Pradesh. UP has posts of 11 ICs sanctioned, however, presently there are only
three ICs working," they said
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