HC directs Haryana to appoint required SICs within four weeks

Punjab and Haryana high court has directed Haryana government to appoint the required number of information commissioners within four weeks after looking into the number of pending cases.

Punjab and Haryana high court has directed Haryana government to appoint the required number of information commissioners within four weeks after looking into the number of pending cases.

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The directions came from a division bench comprising chief justice Ranjan Gogoi and justice Mahesh Grover while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Aseem Takyar.

As of now, apart from chief information commissioner Naresh Gulati, there are three state information commissioners (SICs), namely MR Ranga, Prem Veer Singh and Urvashi Gulati. A former Haryana chief secretary, Urvashi had taken oath as state information commissioner on April 1.

The petitioner had submitted that there were 10 sanctioned posts of SICs. However, there was only one CIC and three SICs.

It was said that as per the information received under the RTI Act, there were 2,500 cases pending before the state information commission, which were getting delayed because of lack of SICs.