Nine Months and Still No Chief Information Commissioner

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission, a statutory body constituted under the Right to Information Act, 2005, has remained without a Chief Information Commissioner for over nine months. In a recent development, Prime Minister-led selection committee met on May 23, but deferred a decision citing need for more inputs on the probable candidates.

At least 203 applicants had applied for the post of CIC in addition to 532 other applications received for the three vacant posts of Information Commissioners. The Cabinet Secretariat has been asked to prepare a shortlist of each category for the next meeting.

Earlier, a Public Interest Litigation had been filed by noted Right to Information (RTI) activists S.C. Agarwal, R.K. Jain and Lokesh Batra through lawyer Prashant Bhushan in the Delhi High Court alleging that no action has been taken on the issue despite two “distress” letters by the CIC to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The petition stated that "due to non-appointment of the Chief IC since 23 August 2014, the appeals and complaints relating to the important authorities including CVC, CBI, President's Secretariat, PMO, Cabinet Secretariat, Supreme Court and High Courts, Lok Sabha, CAG, DOPT, UPSC and Staff Selection Commission are not being heard and there is a vacuum of jurisdiction at CIC for more than 100 authorities/departments, as no officiating arrangements for CIC have been made.”

The CIC has been operating without a head since Rajiv Mathur’s term ended on August 22, 2014. Delhi High Court directed the government to expedite the appointment process and keep the Court updated about the progress as these vacancies have led to massive backlog of cases.

On May 12, 2015, Shailesh Gandhi- a former Chief Information Commissioner- took to social media writing about the regressive forces trying to undermine the RTI Act and urging the civil society to stop them from doing so. He backed up his opinion with facts saying that while six Commissioners had disposed of 22,351 cases in 2011, only 16,006 cases could be disposed of in 2014 by seven Commissioners- claiming that these commissioners are slowly working less and less by not working in time-bound manner, thereby creating a backlog of cases which Indian Judiciary is already paralyzed from.

In a severe blow to transparency, political parties have been denying information under the RTI Act even after a June 2013 judgment by a three judge bench. This blatant defiance has reached a level where these six political parties--BJP,Congress,CPI(M), NCP, BSP, CPI--- are totally ignoring and not even responding to the notices being sent to them by the CIC. After all the show-cause notices and multiple hearings later, a full judge bench of the Central Information Commission pronounced a decision on March 16, 2015 saying “the Commission is bereft of the tools to get its order complied with.”

However, later in April, a single judge bench came up with an order saying that it “initiate measures to prosecute officers guilty of non-compliance under section 187 (Omission to assist public servant when bound by law to give assistance), and Section 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code.