Hiring at top posts: CIC wants know reasons

The government will now have to disclose the specific reasons for appointing senior bureaucrats in different ministries and departments and the basis of reaching such a conclusion.

Updated on: Apr 4, 2011, 01:26:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The government will now have to disclose the specific reasons for appointing senior bureaucrats in different ministries and departments and the basis of reaching such a conclusion.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has been disclosing minutes of the meeting where the decision to post bureaucrats in senior positions were taken but had refused to divulge

the file notings and other documents related to the appointment.

The department had said that file notings and other information cannot be provided under the Right To Information Act as it impinged privacy of the official, who has been appointed. The Central Information Commission, however, overruled the view saying once the Union Cabinet decides on appointment of a particular person, the process is complete and the information has to be provided.

The DoPT had cited section 8 (1) (i) of the RTI Act to deny information on appointments. “The clause has been wrongly applied,” chief information commissioner Satyanandra Misha said, while disposing off an appeal filed by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Aggarwal. Mishra was DoPT secretary, the department which denied information, before joining the CIC. He sought information on sudden transfer of officials in law ministry but the DoPT refused to give him the file notings giving reasons for their transfer.

The CIC also said that the exemption clauses of the RTI Act stipulated under section 8 cannot be made applicable for denying information related to any appointment once the process is complete. In this particular case the process was complete as the Union Cabinet had decided to appoint the officials in the new departments.

The file notings and other documents related to appointment in the government are key as each official gets validation on honesty from the Chief Vigilance Commission, which is reconfirmed by the intelligence agencies. Also, the entire background of the official is checked by different law enforcing agencies before the person is appointed as a secretary in government of India or any other regulatory body.

The same process was supposedly followed in case of appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner PJ Thomas, whose appointment was quashed by the SC.

In that case also, the government provided minutes of the meeting where a decision to appoint him was taken but refused to provide background note on why he should be appointed instead of two others officials in the panel.

Now, the CIC has made the law clear by saying that documents must be provided under RTI to bring in transparency in appointments at the senior level in the government.

In the past, the CIC has asked government to provide information regarding even the information commissioners, which had raised several eyebrows over the appointment process.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.