Impractical ruling

Supreme Court ruling last week on appointments to the Central and state information commissions has created some confusion about the composition and working of these offices.

The court has said that the commissions should work in benches of two members each and one of  them should be a person with judicial training, in effect a judge of a higher court. It also wants the CIC to be a serving or retired high court chief justice or a judge of the Supreme Court. The RTI law mandates the CIC or information commissioners to be persons of eminence from areas like law, social service, media or administration.

By limiting the appointments to judiciary, the court has in effect amended the law. It is true that governments have unwisely and wrongly reserved these positions for former bureaucrats. This has been criticised in the past because bureaucratic attitudes or interests carried over from their past might affect the independence and fairness of their decisions. But the solution may not be to ensure that only judges and former judges can hold the positions. The ruling uncomfortably interferes with legislative intent.

There are practical problems also in implementing the court’s ruling. The CIC and the commissioners are not sure of the legal status of their positions in the light of the ruling. The question is whether they can continue in their offices as most of them do not have a judicial background.

If the work of the commission is to be done only by two-member benches, more commissioners have to be appointed immediately. Till then the work of the commissions will be affected as there will be less number of benches to dispose of cases and appeals. Enough number of persons with judicial background should be available to fill the posts. There is an anomaly too. A former Supreme Court  judge cannot also be appointed as CIC as the retirement age for both positions is 65.

Clarifications are needed on these issues, so that the functioning of the right to information machinery is not affected adversely. The Supreme Court has in the past given strong support to the RTI law, which has empowered citizens like few other legislations. But the latest ruling will act as a constraint. Judicial expertise may be needed in handling many  RTI issues. But judges and former judges are not the only persons with that ability. The court should review the ruling whose implications it probably was not fully aware of.