PMO rejects proposal on CIC appointment

The Prime Minister’s Office has rejected the Central Information Commission’s proposal to appoint the senior-most information commissioner as the Central Information Commissioner. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 11, 2013, 24:40:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The Prime Minister’s Office has rejected the Central Information Commission’s proposal to appoint the senior-most information commissioner as the Central Information Commissioner.

The PMO has decided that the chief information commissioner would be appointed from the existing commissioners and may not be senior-most information commission.

Present CIC Satyananda Mishra is retiring in September and Deepak Sandhu, who would be retiring by this December, is next in the line on seniority.

The PMO in a note to department of personnel and training (DoPT), the nodal ministry for RTI matters, said that a selection committee headed by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth will decide on who would be the next chief information commission from the commissioners.

Similar committees in the past had appointed first CIC Wahajat Habibullah and his successors AN Tiwari and Mishra.

The PMO has given sanction for appointment of four information commissioners and CIC and the selection committee would short-list the candidates from a list of about 300 applicants.

The short-listed candidates would be considered by a committee headed by Prime Minister and having finance minister and leader of opposition, Lok Sabha as members.

A key change in this year’s selection process is that the committee would examine whether the person has basic degree in his or her area of expertise. The decision is result of a Supreme Court order stating that the expression “knowledge and experience” in the RTI Act means basic degree in the respective field and the experience thereafter.

“The search and selection committee should consider the requirement of basic degree in the respective field and the experience gained thereafter, while short-listing and finally selecting the information commissioners,” the department of personnel and training said in a reply to a RTI query.

The appointment of commissioners had been mired in the controversy as the government had admitted before the commission that there are no rules and guidelines for appointment of information commissioners.

Even the person who has not applied for the job can be considered by the committee headed by PM for the appointment. It had happened last when women rights activist Ranjana Kumari was considered even though she had not applied.

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.