The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the Centre and eight States to present a report card on appointments made to the Information Commissions, the apex bodies constituted under the Right to Information Act to help citizens fight for transparency in governance.
The direction comes nearly eight months after the apex court ordered the government to look beyond the coterie of retired bureaucrats for appointment as Information Commissioners, in a judgment delivered on February 15, 2019.
A Bench led by Justice S.A. Bobde directed the Union of India, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala and Gujarat to file a report on their compliance with the February 15 verdict.
The court listed the case for hearing on December 16.
The petition was filed by activist Anjali Bhardwaj, Commodore (Retd) Lokesh Batra and Amrita Johri. They were represented by senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, advocates Pranav Sachdeva and Rahul Gupta.
Mr. Bhushan submitted that vacancies had not been filled despite the February judgment.
In its February verdict, the apex court had concluded that the Central Information Commission (CIC) and State Information Commissions have been bastions for government employees and their retired counterparts. It called the propensity to favour bureaucrats for appointments a “strange phenomenon.” It said the Right to Information Act of 2005 itself required people from varied domains to man the Commissions.
The apex court had found that the “official bias” in favour of bureaucrats and government employees was evident from the very beginning of the process for appointment of Chief Information Commissioners and Information Commissioners.
The judgment had also reinforced the autonomy of the Chief Information Commissioner and equated the office with that of the Chief Election Commissioner.
