Indian Express: Hyderabad: Thursday, September 14, 2017.
The state
government is all set to appoint the chief information commissioner (CIC) and
state information commissioners. Former secretary of state legislature Raja
Sadaram is likely to be named the chief information commissioner. The state
information commission became defunct in April and a PIL was filed in the High
Court for its reconstitution. The next date of hearing by the court is
September 19.
The
government constituted a committee of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao,
opposition leader K Jana Reddy and deputy chief minister Mohamood Mohammed Ali
for recommending the candidates for appointment as commissioners. The committee
is likely to sit this week and finalise the names of the commissioners.
According
to sources, the chief minister cleared
the names for the CIC and two SICs.
State legislature former secretary Raja Sadaram is likely to be made the
chief information commissioner. Two journalists - Buddha Murali, working with a
vernacular newspaper, and Narayana Reddy working with a vernacular TV news
channel - are likely to be appointed as state information commissioners.
Though, the government can appoint ten commissioners in all, the chief minister
is of the view that six commissioners will do following the division of the
combined AP. After finalising the names,
the list will be sent to the governor for his consent. The government will
inform the court of the appointments on September 19.
Till April
the those appointed in the combined AP remained in office. It is the first time
that the new state government is appointing information commissioners under the
Right To Information Act, 2005.
3,600 new
cases have accumulated while commission was defunct As many as 3,600 new cases
have accumulated in the same period of Commission being defunct. Close to
18,000 cases on the whole are pending before the non-existent commission. The last serving IC, P Vijya Babu vacated his
post on May 15 this year after which the appellate body stood neglected until a
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in July.
The Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana High court in August had given both States six weeks to
set up the commission as mandated by the RTI act 2005. Following which Andhra
Pradesh rented a new office at Mangalagiri in Amaravati and shifted base there. “The bifurcation of the cases post the
formation of the State can be done without much difficulty. The cases from
before the formation for the state can be bifurcated based on the district they
were filed from, this will help us identify which of the two Telugu state the
case is from,” said an official who did not wish to be named. The cases post
the formation of Telangana are easy to bifurcate as they are labelled
accordingly, he added.
But the
bifurcation of the cases can only be initiated after the appointment of CICs
for both states. “So far the state government has received over 200
applications for the post of CIC and ICs ad the posts come with good perks, but
the positions may end up being political appointees like last time,” said the
official.
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