The Supreme Court on Friday (Feb 15) directed Centre to fill up all the vacancies of information commissioners within six months. The apex court further said “process to appoint chief information commissioner should be same as in the case of chief election commissioner”.
A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Abdul S Nazeer gave the directions while acting on a PIL filed by social activist Anjali Bhardwaj raising concern over the vacancies in the information commissions across the country.
The bench directed Centre to pre-empt the vacancies and told it to initiate process to appoint information commissioners in Chief Information Commission (CIC) two months before vacancy arises.
The bench also made it clear as who should occupy the positions of information commissioners. It told the Centre also to consider eminent citizens besides bureaucrats for the posts of information commissioners.
It is pertinent to note that on the previous hearings, the bench had slammed the Centre for overlooking eminent citizens for the posts of information commissioners and only suggesting the names of bureaucrats (retired as well as serving) for the posts.
“You don’t find any person from other category under the Right to Information Act?” Justice Sikri had asked.
—India Legal Bureau with PTI inputs