Finally, state govt will fill up info commission posts

Hindustan Times: Bhopal: Saturday, June 15, 2013.

Five months after the MP High Court directed the state government to fill up the vacant posts of the chief information commissioner (CIC) and information commissioners in state, the general administration department came out with an advertisement for the same on Thursday.

Through the advertisement the GAD has invited applications for the post of CIC and the information commissioners (ten posts) by June 25. The details on the eligibility and rules for appointment are available on the website of GAD - www.gad. mp.gov.in.The applications are to be submitted to the deputy secretary ( right to information cell), MP Government General Administration Department, room number 445, Vallabh Bhavan by 5.30pm on June 25.

It might be mentioned that all the posts in the information commission including that of the CIC are vacant since last six months now after the former CIC Iqbal Ahmed retired on December 31, 2012. The three information commissioners had already retired before the CIC.

In view of the fact, RTI activist Ajay Dubey had filed a petition in the High Court, hearing which the HC had directed the state government on January 23 to issue advertisement to fill up the post within three weeks.

However, taking shield of the fact that the matter of eligibility of CIC and information commissioners was going on in the Supreme Court, the state government kept deferring the matter. But the Supreme Court on April 16 made it clear that the state governments could go ahead with constitution of the commissions and partially stayed its previous order on eligibility.

More than two months after this, the state government issued the advertisement seeking applications to the post, but has given time of only 12 days for the candidates to apply.

RTI activist Ajay Dubey has objected to this short time limit and urged government to extend it so that candidates could have enough time to apply.

Meanwhile, more than 13,000 second appeals and over 3000 appeals related complaints have piled up at the information commission office in absence of any commissioners.