Retd babu as RTI panel chief: Ex-CM asked to explain by HC

Times of India: Gurgaon: Tuesday, 28 October 2014.

Hearing two separate petitions challenging the appointments to the state right to service commission and state information commission by Bhupinder Singh Hooda government at the fag end of its tenure, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday issued notices to the Haryana government and the former CM.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice (acting) Ashutosh Mohunta has asked the government and Hooda, who was the chairman of the statutory committee that cleared the appointments, to file their replies by December 22.

Hooda had appointed his former additional principal secretary Shiv Raman Gaur; wife of his political adviser Virender Singh, Rekha Rani; and husband of a sitting high court judge Amar Singh, as state information commissioners (SICs). He had also appointed former chief secretary S C Chaudhary, former IAS Sarban Singh, Lt Gen Virender Singh Tonk and Sunil Katyal in the right to service commission. These appointments were made in July 2014.

The appointments were challenged in the HC through petitions filed by M K Sehgal, a resident of Yamunanagar district and NGO People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). Seeking to quash the appointments made on July 27, the petitioners argued that they were in violation of the statutory provisions of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005.

PUCL alleged that these appointments were made by the statutory committee chaired by Hooda and attended by education minister Geeta Bhukkal. The third member leader of the Opposition Om Prakash Chautala did not attend the meeting. Chautala had, however, recorded his dissent in a note.

It was also contended that the oath of office to the two selected state information commissioners was administered by Hooda himself instead of the appointing authority - the governor of the state.