The Hindu : National : Why restrict Information Commissioner posts to bureaucrats, asks campaign

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 13, 2005

National

National

Why restrict Information Commissioner posts to bureaucrats, asks campaign

Staff Correspondent

This move of the Centre may cause dent in credibility

NEW DELHI: The National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) on Wednesday urged the Central and State Governments to be transparent in setting up the Information Commission. It expressed concern over the reported decision to appoint retired and serving civil servants Information Commissioners.

The Centre's credibility might suffer if the appointment of the commissioners was restricted to serving or retired bureaucrats, the NCPRI said in a statement on the eve of the RTI Act coming into force.

The Act specifies that the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge of and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance. Thus the Act did not intend restriction of these posts to former or current civil servants, the NCPRI said.

Primary objective

The Commission's primary objective was to ensure transparency and that the system did not conceal any information of public interest.

Only in exceptional circumstances should those who were custodians of information be made Information Commissioners.

The NCPRI said the Central Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) must initiate public consultations on the rules and guidelines for the RTI Act.

Despite assurances that the rules would be finalised after consultations, the DoPT did not initiate any dialogue.

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