Bangalore
Mirror: Bangalore: Friday, 26 February 2016.
The delay by
additional chief secretary to the chief minister of Karnataka, DN Narasimha
Raju, in assuming office of the state chief information commissioner is aggravating
the pendency issue, for it has put on hold the process of appointment of four
others.
Speaking
about the pressing requirement and the cause of delay to BM, the source goes as
far as to say, "The waiting is because of the chief (Narasimha Raju). He
has to give his consent for the date of the oath-taking ceremony. But since he
hasn't, the important operation has hit a roadblock."
Senior IAS
officer Raju has to resign from his current post before taking oath as the
chief information commissioner. But with him not being able to do so, the four
others who have been left waiting despite their February 4 appointment are NP
Ramesh, KM Chandre Gowda, PG Vijaya Kumar and Suchetana Swaroop.
Besides
pendency of 31,116 cases, 10 fresh cases come up before the commission every
day. With the available two commissioners not in a position to handle the heavy
workload, activists, demanding that the pendency issue be addressed, urged the
government to fill up the vacancies of five more commissioners. The exercise
has proved a non-starter.
Narasimha
Raju is set to retire from his present post on April 30. If the wait goes on
till then, it will defeat the purpose of the appointments. Raju is believed to
have told the chief minister his delay in taking up the new responsibility is
because he wishes to assist Siddaramaiah with the state budget. Not only does
that mean the pendency issue will have to wait for over a month, it also raises
questions of where Raju would be more useful.
"Raju's
presence as the Chief Information Commissioner could be more useful, more so
when the commission is in difficult times. Hence, he should immediately assume
the new office. We will meet the chief minister and urge him to relieve
Narasimha Raju to discharge his duties as CIC," VM Gowda, an RTI activist
told BM.
.JPG)
.JPG)
