Supreme Court directs immediate filling of posts in central, state information bodies
The Supreme Court on Tuesday took a dim view of the vacancies in the Central Information Commission and state information commissions while directing the Centre to immediately fill posts.
Asking for an expeditious selection of information commissioners in the CIC, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh told Centre, “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?”
The bench criticised the appointments being made only from a particular category of candidates in the CIC and SICs, and mulled taking a judicial note on the presence of bureaucrats, and not people from all walks of life, in these commissions.
“We can take judicial notice of fact that entire commissions are loaded with only one category of people. 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, Justice Surya Kant said.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Anjali Bhardwaj and others, said in 2019 the apex court issued seminal directions for filling of posts in the CIC and SICs but states delayed the selection process and virtually killed the Right to Information Act.
While urging the court to summon the secretaries concerned or seek responses, Bhushan submitted the vacancies caused immense hardship to the people using the platform, and the failure of the state governments to appoint people defeated the very purpose of the Act.