Taking note of the backlog of cases lying in the Central Information Commission (CIC), the High Court on Thursday asked the Central Government to speed up the process of appointing the Chief Information Commissioner and filling the posts of three Information Commissioners which have been lying vacant.
The Centre had been directed to file an affidavit on Wednesday on the basis of a public interest litigation that had alleged that no action had been taken despite two distress letters being written by the CIC to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The respondent’s (Central Government) lawyer, Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appealed for the case to be dismissed, arguing that they had received 203 applications for the post of CIC and 535 for the post of Information Commissioner.
“These applications will have to be sent to the search committee, then these would be put before the selection committee. After this the CBI and IB will have to give vigilance clearance. This whole process will take up to three months,” he said.
The Bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Deepa Sharma, however, refused to dismiss the petition and said the court will monitor the process of these appointments.
“We will not close the writ petition. We want to monitor this personally. As we close it (petition), they (government) might not do it. So we will take up the matter after four weeks. You please tell us by that time what progress you made in filling up the posts,” the Bench said, while posting the matter for May 11.
Bench says it will monitor process of appointments; further hearing on May 11
