76 applications received for post of chief information commissioner

NEW DELHI: The government has received 76 applications, including by three sitting information commissioners, for the post of the chief information commissioner which became vacant on Tuesday when the tenure of incumbent Y K Sinha ended, an RTI response has found.

The Central Information Commission, the highest appellate authority in RTI matters, has a strength of 10 information commissioners and one chief information commissioner but is functioning with just four information commissioners.

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Using the Right to Information Act, activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired) had sought to know from the government the list of people who have applied for the post of Chief Information Commissioner in response to the advertisement dated August 7. In its response on Friday, the Central Public Information Officer of the Department of Personnel and Training said 76 applications had been received.

Four late applications have also been received. According to the list provided in the response, three sitting Information Commissioners -- Heeralal Samariya, Saroj Punhani and Uday Mahurkar -- and former Information Commissioner Amita Pandove have also applied for the position. "This is the fifth time that the position of the Chief Information Commission has become vacant, leaving the Commission headless after 2014. Not one Chief Information Commission has been appointed after August 22, 2014 before the position became vacant," Batra said.

Unlike courts, where acting chief justices are invariably appointed, there no provision in the RTI Act, 2005 for designating an 'acting chief information commissioner', he said. Thus, the vacant position of the chief information commissioner means several administrative and financial decisions remain in limbo till the next incumbent is positioned, Batra said.

For the vacant position of Information Commissioners, the government issued an advertisement in December last year. In a separate response to Batra, the DoPT said 256 applications had been received against the December 20, 2022, advertisement for the posts of information commissioners (not exceeding six).

The tenure of all the sitting information commissioners — Suresh Chandra, Uday Mahurkar, Heeralal Samariya and Saroj Punhani — will end in November, officials said.