PM Modi, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi meet to finalise CIC appointments

The three-member selection panel, mandated under Section 12(3) of the Right to Information Act, is chaired by the prime minister and includes the leader of the opposition and a Union minister nominated by the PM.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday, held a meeting to finalise key appointments to the Central Information Commission (CIC), reported CNN-News18.

The high-level committee examined names for the post of Chief Information Commissioner as well as eight vacant positions of information commissioners.

The three-member selection panel, mandated under Section 12(3) of the Right to Information Act, is chaired by the prime minister and includes the leader of the opposition and a Union minister nominated by the PM.

The committee is responsible for recommending appointments to the transparency watchdog.

The CIC is authorised to have one Chief Information Commissioner and up to 10 Information Commissioners. Yet, the Commission is currently functioning with only two, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari, with eight positions vacant. As of the latest data, the CIC is grappling with 30,838 pending cases.

The Commission has been without a chief since September 13, when Heeralal Samariya retired on turning 65. This is the seventh time since 2014 that the CIC has gone headless; the first such instance followed the retirement of Rajiv Mathur in August 2014.

In response to an RTI query by activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd), the Department of Personnel and Training revealed that it had received 83 applications for the Chief Information Commissioner’s post after issuing an advertisement on May 21. Another 161 applications were received for Information Commissioner vacancies following an August 14 advertisement.

As per the appointment process, the DoPT compiles all applications and forwards them to a Search Committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary. The Search Committee’s recommendations, along with the full set of applications, are then placed before the Prime Minister-led selection panel for final consideration.

Persons cleared by the selection panel are appointed by the President.