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Why only bureaucrats on information panels, asks SC
Why in news?
- The Central Information Commission (CIC) and State Information Commissions, the country’s apex bodies entrusted to uphold the citizen’s right to information, have been bastions of government employees and their retired counterparts.
- The apex court has found that official bias towards bureaucrats and government employees was evident from the very beginning of the process for their appointment.
What RTI act says?
Eminent persons on board:
- The Right to Information Act of 2005 itself requires people from varied domains to man the Commissions.
- The court raised concerns over how government employees had consistently been found “more competent and more suitable” than eminent persons from other walks of life.
Preventing official bias:
- Parliament intended that persons of eminence in public life should be taken as Chief Information Commissioner as well Information Commissioners.
- Many persons who fit the criteria have been applying for these posts.
- However, all those persons who have been selected belong to only one category i.e., government employees.
Other issues like pendency:
- Entire RTI mechanism has been choked by rising pendency and growing number of vacancies of Information Commissioners.
- Supreme Court has, put the government on a deadline for filling vacancies in the Commissions.
- The court directed that the process of appointment should commence at least one or two months before the retirement is due.
Central Information Commission (CIC)
- set up under the Right to Information Act in 2005.
- It is the quasi-judicial body.
- The Commission includes 1 (CIC) and not more than 10 (IC).
- Appointed by the President of India on the recommendation of a committee consisting of—Prime Minister as Chairperson, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha; a Union Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister.
Source
The Hindu.