Satyanand Mishra, currently one of six information Commissioners and an IAS officer of 1973 batch, has been selected to be the next Chief Information Commissioner.
This was finalised here on Monday by a panel comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Law Minister Veerappa Moily and Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj.
Mr. Mishra will be replacing A.N. Tiwari who has held the position of Chief Information Commissioner since October 1 this year. Mr. Tiwari was one of six ommissioners since 26 December 2005.
Apparently, the government placed before Ms. Swaraj a list of currently serving Commissioners while adding it would prefer to go by seniority. Since Mr. Mishra was the most senior, his name was approved with Ms. Swaraj consenting.
She later told reporters that unlike at the time of selecting the Central Vigilance Commissioner, the procedure was transparent with the government placing the list of existing Information Commissioners before her. She said she had no problem approving Mr. Mishra's name on the basis of his seniority.
The other five Information Commissioners are Annapurna Dixit, Deepak Sandhu, Sushma Singh, M.L. Sharma and Shailesh Gandhi.
