Login With Google
Set deadline to fill CIC, SICs posts
Why it is in news?
- The Supreme Court put the government in the dock over long-pending vacancies in the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions, adjudicatory bodies under the Right to Information Act.
A Petition
- A Bench of Justices asked the Centre and seven States to file affidavits with a deadline by which they would fill the vacancies.
- The affidavits have to be filed in four weeks.
- The court asked why four positions were still vacant in the CIC despite a government advertisement issued in 2016.
- Expressing concern over pendency of cases in the SICs, the Bench asked Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Kerala, Odisha and Karnataka to respond with a timeline for filling vacancies.
- The plea by the RTI activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Commodore (retired) Lokesh Batra and Amrita Johri has said that over 23,500 appeals and complaints are pending with the CIC.
- The petitioners said the Centre and the State governments had “attempted to stifle” the
- RTI Act by failing to appoint commissioners.
Source
The Hindu