New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Centre to immediately fill vacant posts in the Central Information Commission (CIC) and state information commissions (SICs), and also asked, "Why should only bureaucrats be appointed and why not people from different walks of life be appointed....".
The matter came up before a bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh. The bench expressed its discontent at appointments being made only from a particular category of candidates in the commissions and pointed out that the commissions were loaded with only one category of people.
Justice Kant said, “Why should only bureaucrats be appointed and why not people from different walks of life are appointed. We don't want to say more but this needs to be looked into…..”.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing petitioner Anjali Bhardwaj and others, contended that the court in 2019 had issued seminal directions for filling of posts in the CIC and SICs but states delayed the selection process. Bhushan stressed that this has virtually killed the Right to Information Act and added that the vacancies caused immense hardship to the people using the platform.
The bench emphasised on expeditious selection of information commissioners in the CIC and added, "these posts need to be filled at the earliest otherwise what is the use of having the institution, if we don’t have people working?"
Bhushan requested the bench to either summon the secretaries concerned or seek responses and emphasised that the court issued directions for the appointment of people from different fields.
The bench directed the Centre to file a status report on the selection process, which began in August 2024, and also explain the timeline of its completion.
The bench asked the joint secretary at the Department of Personnel and Training to file an affidavit, regarding the completion of the process regarding 161 candidates, who applied for the post of information commissioners, and also disclose the names of candidates, who applied for the post and the criteria for short-listing them in two weeks.
It noted that the advertisements for appointment of information commissioners in the Jharkhand SIC was issued in June 2024, but no progress has been made so far.
The bench asked the largest opposition party in Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha to nominate one of its elected members to the selection committee for the limited purpose of choosing the information commissioners and appointments could start thereafter. The bench directed other state governments to notify the list of applicants within one week apart from the composition of the selection committee, the criteria to shortlist candidates, and the timeline for conducting the interview and appointments.
The apex court in November last year, asked the Centre and states to apprise it about the steps taken to fill the posts. The plea had argued that the Centre and states did not follow the apex court's 2019 judgment on the issues including timely filling of posts in CIC and SICs.
