The Hindu: New Delhi: Wednesday,
8 January 2025.
Justice Surya Kant observes the Supreme Court can take judicial notice of how Information Commissions are ‘overloaded’ with ‘one set of candidates’
The Supreme Court on Tuesday
(January 7, 2025) slammed the chronic delay shown by the Centre and States in
appointing Information Commissioners to decide citizens’ rights under the Right
to Information Act, asking what was the use of creating the transparency-in-governance
institution in the country if there were no people to work for the law.
A Bench headed by Justice Surya Kant noted that the Central Information Commission (CIC) has eight vacancies in the posts of the Information Commissioners, with 23,000 pending appeals filed by citizens seeking information from various government departments. Several Information Commissions in States have been defunct since 2020, and some have stopped accepting petitions under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
“An institution has been created… What is the use of this institution if you do not have persons to perform the duties under the law?” Justice Kant asked Additional Solicitor General Brijender Chahar, appearing for the Centre.
Justice Kant cautioned the government about how only people from a certain milieu, bureaucracy, get to be appointed as Information Commissioners.
“We can take judicial notice of how many people from different walks have been appointed… The entire Commission is overloaded with one set of candidates,” Justice Kant remarked.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner-activist Anjali Bharadwaj, said the unabated appointments of retired bureaucrats continue despite a February 2019 apex court judgment highlighting the need to appoint people from all walks of life.
Mr. Bhushan said repeated prods from the Supreme Court in the 2019 judgment, and orders passed in October 2023 and November 2024 to make timely and transparent appointments of Chief Information Commissioners and Information Commissioners, had hardly made a difference.
Mr. Chahar said an advertisement inviting applications to the posts of Information Commissioners was called in August 2024. It had received 161 applications in response. The Centre vaguely said, “the selection process was underway”.
“There has been only regression and not progress after the Supreme Court’s intervention. They are killing the RTI because nobody is interested in giving information. So the best way to kill the law is to render the Information Commissions defunct,” Mr. Bhushan submitted. He said it takes more than a year for a case to be even listed before the Central Information Commission.
The court directed the Department of Personnel and Training to file an affidavit in two weeks specifying timelines for completion of the selection process; for the selection committee to finalise its recommendations; and, finally, for the notification of the appointments of the eight Information Commissioners to the Central Information Commission. The Bench directed the Department to disclose the constitution of the search committee and a list of the candidates who had applied for the posts.
The Bench also took care of the “peculiar” situation in Jharkhand where the lack of a Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Vidhan Sabha was delaying appointments to the State Information Commission, which had been lying defunct since 2020 with over 8,000 appeals pending. Under the RTI Act, the LoP is a member of the selection committee. The court was informed that the Opposition National Democratic Alliance had also not chosen a leader of the single largest party in the Opposition, who could have taken the place of the LoP on the selection panel.
The top court directed the single largest Opposition party in Jharkhand to nominate one of its elected members for the selection committee, and complete the appointments process in about the next 10 weeks.
Justice Kant, accompanied by Justice N. Kotiswar Singh on the Bench, directed States which had initiated the appointments process, “but without any commitment to a timeline”, to notify the list of applicants and the composition of the search committee in two weeks, and complete the process in a total of eight weeks thereafter. Their Chief Secretaries were ordered to file compliance reports which would also individually detail the pendency in their representative States.
Justice Surya Kant observes the Supreme Court can take judicial notice of how Information Commissions are ‘overloaded’ with ‘one set of candidates’
A Bench headed by Justice Surya Kant noted that the Central Information Commission (CIC) has eight vacancies in the posts of the Information Commissioners, with 23,000 pending appeals filed by citizens seeking information from various government departments. Several Information Commissions in States have been defunct since 2020, and some have stopped accepting petitions under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
“An institution has been created… What is the use of this institution if you do not have persons to perform the duties under the law?” Justice Kant asked Additional Solicitor General Brijender Chahar, appearing for the Centre.
Justice Kant cautioned the government about how only people from a certain milieu, bureaucracy, get to be appointed as Information Commissioners.
“We can take judicial notice of how many people from different walks have been appointed… The entire Commission is overloaded with one set of candidates,” Justice Kant remarked.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner-activist Anjali Bharadwaj, said the unabated appointments of retired bureaucrats continue despite a February 2019 apex court judgment highlighting the need to appoint people from all walks of life.
Mr. Bhushan said repeated prods from the Supreme Court in the 2019 judgment, and orders passed in October 2023 and November 2024 to make timely and transparent appointments of Chief Information Commissioners and Information Commissioners, had hardly made a difference.
Mr. Chahar said an advertisement inviting applications to the posts of Information Commissioners was called in August 2024. It had received 161 applications in response. The Centre vaguely said, “the selection process was underway”.
“There has been only regression and not progress after the Supreme Court’s intervention. They are killing the RTI because nobody is interested in giving information. So the best way to kill the law is to render the Information Commissions defunct,” Mr. Bhushan submitted. He said it takes more than a year for a case to be even listed before the Central Information Commission.
The court directed the Department of Personnel and Training to file an affidavit in two weeks specifying timelines for completion of the selection process; for the selection committee to finalise its recommendations; and, finally, for the notification of the appointments of the eight Information Commissioners to the Central Information Commission. The Bench directed the Department to disclose the constitution of the search committee and a list of the candidates who had applied for the posts.
The Bench also took care of the “peculiar” situation in Jharkhand where the lack of a Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Vidhan Sabha was delaying appointments to the State Information Commission, which had been lying defunct since 2020 with over 8,000 appeals pending. Under the RTI Act, the LoP is a member of the selection committee. The court was informed that the Opposition National Democratic Alliance had also not chosen a leader of the single largest party in the Opposition, who could have taken the place of the LoP on the selection panel.
The top court directed the single largest Opposition party in Jharkhand to nominate one of its elected members for the selection committee, and complete the appointments process in about the next 10 weeks.
Justice Kant, accompanied by Justice N. Kotiswar Singh on the Bench, directed States which had initiated the appointments process, “but without any commitment to a timeline”, to notify the list of applicants and the composition of the search committee in two weeks, and complete the process in a total of eight weeks thereafter. Their Chief Secretaries were ordered to file compliance reports which would also individually detail the pendency in their representative States.