Times of India: New Delhi: Tuesday, November 04, 2014.
Paperwork
moved back and forth for nearly five months before the government decided to
invite public applications for the position of the chief information
commissioner and form a selection committee. Information accessed through RTI
reveals that the government has nominated Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in
the three-member selection panel along with finance and defence minister Arun
Jaitley.
File notings,
made public in response to an RTI application by Lokesh Batra, reveal that the
department of personnel and training had sought a clarification regarding the
status of "leader of opposition" from the Lok Sabha secretariat as
early as June. But it was only in October that the PMO finally directed the DoPT
to issue an advertisement for the position. The post of CIC has been vacant
since August 22.
The RTI Act
requires that selection of CIC be done by a three-member panel comprising the
Prime Minister, who shall be the Chairperson of the committee, Leader of Opposition
in Lok Sabha and a cabinet minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister.
"For the
purposes of removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that where 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," the Act
says.
In response,
the Lok Sabha secretariat clarified, "As per the information received from
the party, Mallikarjun Kharge is the Leader of Indian National Congress in Lok
Sabha which is the single largest party in opposition in Lok Sabha."
After
receiving the response, DoPT had referred the matter to the law ministry
seeking to know whether leader of single largest party can be
"treated" as leader of "single largest group" in the Lok
Sabha for the purpose of the RTI Act? "Our answer to the query is in the
affirmative. We, however, clarify that this answer is only for the limited
purpose of the RTI Act [explanation below Section 12(3)] and not for any other
purpose," the law ministry said in its advice to DoPT.
The law
ministry had also made it clear that the term "single largest group in
opposition", as mentioned in the RTI Act, is not defined either in the RTI
Act, Acts pertaining to functioning of MPs and Parliament and compilations of
"Directions by the Speaker of Lok Sabha".
It said it
relied on the response of the Lok Sabha Secretariat saying Kharge is the leader
of Congress which is the single largest party in opposition.
The PMO
responded only on October 17 saying the PM has desired that applications be
called for the CIC post rather than one of the information commissioners be
considered for the post as was the practice under the UPA. These applications
were called on October 24 with a month-long deadline.
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