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The Apex Court of India has issued directions to the Central and State governments to disclose details such as criteria and other rules followed while shortlisting a candidate for the post of information commissioner. The Hon’ble Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice A K Sikri, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice R. Subhash Reddy ordered that the Union and State Government must disclose the shortlisted candidates and the basis of shortlisting on the respective websites.
The Supreme Court reiterated that it might take on record the statement made by the Additional Solicitor General that the selection basis finds its correspondence with that prescribed by the RTI Act itself. Insofar as the Central Information Commission is concerned, the Union Government had filed an affidavit elucidating the status of appointments to the post of Chief Information Commissioner and other information commissioners. Later, the centre said the court that it received 64 applications and 280 applications for the post of Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioner respectively. The number of vacancies advertised for the post of Information Commissioner was four.
After confirming that the government had finalised the appointment of Chief Information Commissioner, the court was informed that the appointment would be made in time. The court also emphasized that the government must initiate the process through advertising at the earliest to fill up the remaining vacancies for the post of Information Commissioner.
To the contrary, Advocate Prashant Bhushan contended that CIC advertisement does not comply with the necessary rules prescribed by the RTI Act. In support of his contention, he said that the advertisement is silent on salary, allowance and other terms of the appointments, especially when the RTI expressly stipulates to disclose such particulars.
So far as the appointment in State Information Commission is concerned, the court had to examine the affidavits filed by various states in India, namely: Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Odisha, Gujarat, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. The Karnataka Government advertised one vacancy for the State Information Commissioner, and the Maharashtra Government advertised for two vacancies for the same post and informed the court that the process for filling the same would be initiated within four weeks.
The Hon’ble Court also directed the West Bengal Government to file within two weeks an affidavit regarding the number of SICs required, the number of applications received under the RTI Act, appeals pending before the SICs and the pendency of such appeals. The Court’s direction to the Andhra Pradesh Government was no dissimilar from that of what West Bengal Government received. However, the court-appointed In-charge Chief of the Information State Commission Mr M. Ravi Kumar should appoint a Chief within one month.
The Apex Court directed the Telangana State Government to file an affidavit stating the number of functioning SICs, a justification for refusing to fill up the vacancies, number of posts required to be filled and the process of filling the vacancies. Similar was the direction to the Odisha State Government, and the Gujarat State Government was directed to complete the selection process for State Information Commissioners and the Chief before the next hearing which is on January 22, 2019.
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