Financial
Express: New Delhi: Thursday, 09 October 2014.
Over 500
people including sitting and former bureaucrats are among the applicants for
four vacant posts of Information Commissioners (ICs) at the Central Information
Commission.
The list of
applicants given in an RTI response includes former textile secretary Zohra
Chatterjee, former Secretary in the Department of Personnel Shyamal Kumar
Sarkar, Vishwapati Trivedi, who is Shipping Secretary apart from lawyers,
journalists, activists and people from all walks of life.
Lt Gen (retd)
Anil Chait, Lt Gen (retd) N C Marwah also figure in the list which includes
journalists V Venkatesan, Satya Prakash, activists Girish Mittal, Varun Arya
among others.
In reply to
Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra, the Department of Personnel and Training, nodal
ministry for RTI affairs, said total of 553 applicants applied for the post of
information commissioners in the CIC.
It said a
search committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary has been constituted to
shortlist names for placing before the Selection Committee chaired by the Prime
Minister.
According to
RTI Act, the CIC can have a Chief Information Commissioner and 10 ICs whereas
there are only seven ICs. The transparency panel became headless in July after
the retirement of then Chief Information Commissioner Rajiv Mathur as no new
appointment was made in his place.
"As per
section 12(3)of the RTI Act, Chief Information Commissioner/Information
Commissioner is appointed by the President on recommendation of the Committee
consisting of Prime Minister, who shall be the chairperson of the committee,
the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Union Cabinet Minister to be
nominated by the Prime Minister," it said.
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