The petitioners and other RTI activist said the central government's ad for appointing information commissioners seemed more in tune with the proposed amendments to the RTI Act
Petitioners who have approached the Supreme Court for the appointment of information commissioners said they will now file an affidavit on a recent advertisement related to their appointments. The petitioners and other RTI activist said the central government's ad for appointing information commissioners seemed more in tune with the proposed amendments to the RTI Act over what is to be followed as per the Act.
As per the ad and the notice on the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), "The salary, allowances and other terms and conditions of service of the information commissioners shall be as specified at the time of the appointment of the selected candidates." The proposed amendments were to be applicable to both central and state governments.
"With what they have done, it seems that they still intend to amend the RTI Act and push it through without pre-legislative consultation. It seems they want unsuitable people who are clerks. Unless they mention the salary and tenure, who will even want to apply. It seems to be a precursor to further amendments and what they intend to do with other independent statutory bodies," said Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner.
As per the RTI Act, the salary of the chief commissioner is on par with the chief election commissioner and their tenures are fixed for five years unless they cross the age of 65 or whichever is earlier.
"We will file a fresh affidavit on the issue. In the last hearing, the government was told to give an affidavit on how many posts it will fill, the process and time frame and what happened to an earlier advertisement on the issue," said Anjali Bhardwaj, an RTI activist.
Venkatesh Nayak, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), said, "There were already protests and we were sending postcards to the government. We are also whetting if the government can completely scrap the amendments instead of deferring them."
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