Vacancies In Information Commissions: SC Seeks Status Report From Centre, 8 States

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the Centre and eight states, including Odisha, to file a status report on the steps taken for filling up vacant posts in Central and State Information Commissions by December 13.

Besides the Centre, the eight states that have been asked to file their status report are Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala and Karnataka.

The bench, comprising Justice A K Sikri and Justice S Abdul Nazeer, while considering a PIL filed by Anjali Bhardwaj, also directed these states to explain within a week the manner in which these posts are sought to be filled.

“This state of affairs is throttling the functioning of the RTI Act, which is not good for democracy as the main purpose behind passing the RTI Act was to ensure transparency in the system,” said advocate Prashant Bhushan, while submitting a PIL on behalf of Bharadwaj.

The Advocate brought the status of vacancies in Information Commissions in the country to the notice of the apex court through a chart, which states that the Central Information Commission (CIC) is now functioning with only three commissioners and eight vacancies, including that of the CIC are to be filled up.

Advocate Bhushan also informed the apex court that not only in the CIC, the State Information Commissions (SICs) posts are also lying vacant and no effective steps are being taken to fill up these vacancies.

The chart revealed that eight posts of Information Commissioners in Odisha are lying vacant. The Commission is functioning with only three commissioners, including the SIC. More than 10,000 appeals and complaints were pending before the SIC till October 31, 2017, it stated.