SC stays appointment of Information Commissioners in CIC

The Supreme Court has asked the government not to appoint any more information commissioners in the Central Information Commission till it decides on the plea making it mandatory for the transparency body to have members from judicial background.

A Bench comprising Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar passed the order to this effect while reserving its judgement on the petition challenging the validity of section 12 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which deals with the appointment of Chief Information Commissioner and 10 other information commissioners.

The petition filed by one Namit Sharma has contended that since the work of the CIC under the RTI Act is mainly connected with the law, members in the transparency panel should have legal background.

However, government has opposed the petition contending that since the function of the CIC is like a quasi-judicial body, it could not be made mandatory that the members should have judicial background.