Former IAS officer Raj Kumar Goyal assumed charge as the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) on Monday, while eight other information commissioners took the oath of office, bringing the Central Information Commission to its full sanctioned strength after a gap after several years.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Goyal at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Vice President CP Radhakrishnan was also present at the ceremony.
Goyal, a 1990-batch (retired) IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre, superannuated as secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice, on August 31. He has earlier served as secretary (border management) in the ministry of home affairs and held senior positions in the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The post of CIC fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13.
The eight new information commissioners are former Railway Board chairman and chief executive officer Jaya Varma Sinha; former Indian Police Service officer Swagat Das, who served in the Intelligence Bureau, the home ministry and the cabinet secretariat; central secretariat service officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal; former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena; and former Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi. Senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and former Indian Legal Service officer Sudha Rani Relangi, have also been sworn in as information commissioners.
The appointments fill all sanctioned posts in the Commission. Under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, the Central Information Commission is headed by a Chief Information Commissioner and can have up to 10 Information Commissioners. The Commission functions as the final appellate authority for RTI matters involving central public authorities, Union ministries, departments and public sector undertakings.
{{/usCountry}}The appointments fill all sanctioned posts in the Commission. Under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, the Central Information Commission is headed by a Chief Information Commissioner and can have up to 10 Information Commissioners. The Commission functions as the final appellate authority for RTI matters involving central public authorities, Union ministries, departments and public sector undertakings.
{{/usCountry}}At various points in recent years, the Commission had been functioning with multiple vacancies, contributing to delays in the hearing and disposal of RTI appeals and complaints, according to data placed before Parliament and disclosures by the Commission.
A three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommended their names for the appointment last week.
Gandhi recorded a note of dissent during the meeting of the selection panel, officials said. In his dissent, Gandhi raised concerns over the composition of the shortlisted candidates and sought details on social representation among applicants. He stated that the list did not adequately reflect representation from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Economically Backward Classes and minority communities, and submitted his objections in writing.
Government officials, however, said the selection process was carried out in accordance with the prescribed procedure and that the committee finalised the appointments after considering eligible candidates and institutional requirements.
The appointments come amid continued scrutiny of the functioning of information commissions following amendments to the RTI Act in 2019, which changed the tenure and service conditions of Information Commissioners and vested the Union government with the power to notify these through rules. Opposition parties and civil society groups have raised concerns in Parliament and outside over the impact of vacancies and appointment processes on the implementation of the transparency law.