The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to file an updated status report on the current vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC). A bench led by Justice S Abdul Nazeer has directed all state governments to file latest compliance reports in 4 weeks on a 2019 top court order which had asked for timely appointment of Information Commissioners (ICs) in CIC and State Information Commissions (SICs).
The petition filed by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj wants the criteria to be made public for selection of people in the search committee which appoints Information Commissioners, and seeks implementation of the 2019 verdict which called for time-bound filling up of vacancies at the CIC and SICs. Arguing for the petitioner, lawyer Prashant Bhushan questioned the current criteria for appointment of ICs.
Bhushan claimed that a “bogus”, “party journalist” was appointed as an IC despite his name not figuring in the candidate list of over 300 probables.
However, Centre took strong exception to the aspersions cast on the journalist appointed as an IC. Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Madhavi Divan submitted that as of now there are 7 serving Information Commissioners apart from the Chairperson in CIC, against a maximum strength of up to 10 members.
On 15th February 2019, the apex court had asked the Centre and states to expedite filling of vacancies in the CIC and SICs in a transparent way within 6 months of the position being vacated. Court had then passed orders on a PIL which claimed that over 20,000 pending cases before the CIC were rising due to the vacancies.
