Economic
Times: New Delhi: Saturday, 23 August 2014.
The government today put on hold the appointment
of new chief of Central Information Commission (CIC) due to the absence of the
Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the selection committee leaving the
transparency watchdog headless for the first time since its inception in 2005.
Chief Information Commissioner Rajiv Mathur
relinquished his charge today. A former chief of Intelligence Bureau ( IB), he
had taken over as sixth Chief Information Commissioner on May 22, this year.
The appointment of the CIC head has to be done by
President Pranab Mukherjee on the recommendation of a three-member selection
committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and comprising LoP and a Union
Cabinet Minister to be nominated by Modi.
The appointment of the new chief of the CIC has
not been done as there is no Leader of the Opposition, official sources said.
The CIC will function without its chief as there
is no provision in the Right to Information (RTI) Act about handing over the
charge to any Information Commissioner, they said.
As per the RTI Act, if "the Leader of
Opposition in the House of the People has not been recognised as such, the
leader of the single largest group in opposition of the Government in the House
of the People shall be deemed to be the Leader of Opposition".
According to the Act, CIC is appointed either for
a maximum of five-year term or till 65 years of age, whichever is earlier. Mathur
retired after completion of 65 years of age. He had in March 2012 joined as
Information Commissioner in the CIC.
In a related development, the Supreme Court today
decided to go into the issue of interpreting the provision of Leader of
Opposition in Lok Sabha in the matter of selection of statutory bodies when
there is no recognised LoP.
Asking the government to make its stand clear
within two weeks, a bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha emphasised the
importance of the post saying Leader of Opposition conveys the voice of
representation different from government in the House.