The vacancies arose after the retirement of ICs Basant Seth on February, MA Khan Yusufi on December last year Sharat Sabharwal, who completed his tenure last month.
The Centre's lack of seriousness in bringing transparency in governance through the Right to Information medium is evident, with it failing to make appointments for three vacant information commissioners' (IC) positions at the Central Information Commission (CIC), despite a massive pendency in cases.
The vacancies arose after the retirement of ICs Basant Seth on February, MA Khan Yusufi on December last year Sharat Sabharwal, who completed his tenure last month. A fourth vacancy is likely to arise in January next year when IC Manjula Prashar completes her tenure. Last month, RTI activist Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra wrote an open letter to Dr Jitendra Singh, minister of state Prime Minister Office and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions highlighting the problem.
Batra's letter stated that even after one year of advertising the two posts of ICs in CIC, the government has failed to select and fill these posts even as an RTI revealed that 225 persons had applied for these two posts. In September last year, the government had sought applications for appointments to the posts of two ICs.
"The pendency in CIC still stands at 24,338 cases and that too when commission has been returning back about 35-40 per cent cases due to faulty documentation," the activist stated, adding that it is defeating the objectives of "Transparency Law" where law-makers had made provision for furnishing information within 30 days of RTI request.
"Unlike many years when information on appointment of ICs, was easily shared with citizens under the RTI Act, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has suddenly decided to become opaque, calling this information as 'cabinet papers' by overturning its own First Appellate Authority' (FAA) past order and even ignoring CIC order," the activist wrote. Even the National Campaign for People's Right to Information in June this year had written to PM Narendra Modi over the delay in appointing two information commissioners for the vacant positions at the CIC.
It had stated that the vacancies are a hindrance to people's fundamental right to information as guaranteed under the RTI Act, 2005 as fewer ICs hearing cases have lead to an increased pendency thus making people wait for a long time to be heard by the CIC.
Talking about the issue, Tahmina Laskar of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative told DNA that the three vacancies are indeed adding to the existing pendency.
"Aside increasing pendency of cases, the government had diluted RTI rules, which received criticisms from all civil society groups. However, there has been no change in the diluted rules so far," she said.
The CIC has a chief information commissioner and ten ICs, each of whom is responsible for handling queries from several government departments and ministries.
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