State info commissioners to assume office on Saturday

Bangalore Mirror: Bangalore: Thursday, March 03, 2016.

In a major relief to citizens bogged down by a huge pendency in Right To Information (RTI) applications and to the state information commission, the state's four new information commissioners will finally assume office on Saturday, almost a month after they were appointed on February 4.

Bangalore Mirror on February 26 had reported how senior IAS officer and additional chief secretary DN Narasimharaju dilly-dallied on deciding to assume office of chief information commissioner had resulted in the four newly-appointed state information commissioners waiting to assume their office. This, in turn, had adversely affected the functioning of the state information commission itself.

Now, the four state election commissioners will assume office on Saturday after the swearing-in ceremony at which governor Vajubhai Vala will administer the oath to the new commissioners NP Ramesh, KM Chandre Gowda, PG Vijaya Kumar, and Suchetana Swaroop.

Once they assume office the four will have to share a whopping 31,116 RTI applications among them to clear the pendency. Narasimharaju is expected to take oath after his retirement in April after which he will assume the office of the state's chief information commissioner. "Certain sections of activists, expressing their dissent, had planned to meet the CM to urge him to relieve the additional chief secretary of his duties. Amidst this comes the development of swearing-in ceremony minus the chief information commissioner. This will certainly silence the activists because with the four assuming office the commission's strength will be up to six, making it almost full. This, in turn, result will result in regular court hearings except the chief's," a source said.

Of the seven commissioners, six will be in office from Saturday including the sitting commissioners L Krishnamurthy and Shankar R Patil, the former continuing to hold the post of chief information commissioner.

Once the commission has all its commissioners, sources in the commission said, they would start RTI adalats across Karnataka and thereby redress grievances in the districts then and there. With a full bench, the commission is hoping to bring down the pendency by half in a year's time, said the source.