INDIA
Central Information Commission, the country's transparency watchdog, is likely to go headless from tomorrow as no decision has been taken on the successor of chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah.
Central Information Commission, the country's transparency watchdog, is likely to go headless from tomorrow as no decision has been taken on the successor of chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah.
The new chief information commissioner will be chosen by a committee comprising the prime minister, the leader of Opposition and a minister of the Union cabinet. The committee has not met to decide on the issue.
Habibullah, who demits office today, told PTI that chief information commissioner is the administrative head of the transparency panel and all related works will come to a standstill until his successor is appointed.
The chief information commissioner will, however, authorise some information commissioner to keep hearing appeals and complaints against the departments which were under him.
Habibullah is looking after the CBI, cabinet secretariat, the CIC, the CVC, higher education, PMO, Supreme Court and high courts among others.
According to the RTI Act, the chief information commissioner can only be selected by the committee hence the charge cannot be handed over to any other information commissioner at the CIC even temporarily.
When contacted, the prime minister's office said that no meeting on the issue has been scheduled as of now.
Meanwhile, all but one information commissioners have passed a resolution saying the new CIC should be from among them.
"The commissioners wish to reiterate and emphasise that the successor to Shri Habibullah should be found from within the commission," the resolution passed by seven Information commissioners said. It did not get the support of Information
commissioner Shailesh Gandhi who put his dissent on record
while Habibullah abstained.
"If the chief information commissioner were to be appointed from outside the commission, it will not only run contrary to the healthy conventions established in such collegial bodies as the Supreme Court, CEC and UPSC , but will also be extremely demoralising for those already serving the commission with the exemplary dedication," the resolution said.
It said selection of any one as the CIC from outside the commission would also amount to uncritical acceptance of the
loud clamour of certain vociferous interested groups as rational wisdom.
If any of the information commissioners is appointed from within the CIC the term of their office shall not be more than five years in aggregate as the information commissioner and the chief information commissioner.
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