Seeking transparency, activists apply for top posts in RTI panel

Times of India: Chennai: Thursday, 16 July 2015.

Upset over the lack of transparency in the selection of information commissioners, RTI activists have submitted their candidacy for the post of commissioners to the Tamil Nadu personnel and administrative reforms (P&AR) department, which is the nodal agency for the RTI Act.

According to the RTI Act, the P&AR department should invite applications for the post from the public and upload the list of shortlisted candidates on its website. However, the government has neither invited applications from the public nor uploaded the list of shortlisted candidates, even though the post of state chief information commissioner has been lying vacant since April when K S Sripathi retired. The number of appeals pending before the state information commission is nearly 20,000.

Siva Elango, an RTI activist who applied for the post of information commissioner, said, "The RTI Act is being sabotaged by the Tamil Nadu government. There have been no efforts to fill vacancies of Chief Commissioner and six commissioners so far. The successive governments have maintained secrecy over the appointments of commissioners. But we don't want any political nominees or retired bureaucrats who have favoured the ruling party during their tenure in the panel".

"I have been creating awareness on the RTI Act for more than seven years. I have also asked other activists to apply for the posts as the performance of the Tamil Nadu information commission is worse compared to its counterparts in Karnataka and Maharashtra. But the state government is reluctant to appoint RTI activists as commissioners as they don't want a transparent panel" he adds.

Activists say the details of applications received, grounds of rejection and candidate's background, experience and expertise should be disclosed on the website. "I have applied for the post of chief information commissioner. The government now cannot say that nobody else applied for the post. The government will also have to explain on what grounds eligible candidates were rejected," said V Gopalakrishnan, an RTI activist.

When contacted, P&AR department principal secretary P W C Davidar was unavailable for comment.

Section 15(5) of the RTI Act states, "The state chief information commissioner and the state information commissioners shall be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance."

The P&AR department is responsible for short listing candidates before presenting the list to an appointment committee, which is headed by the chief minister. Other members include the leader of the opposition in the legislative assembly and a cabinet minister nominated by the chief minister.