CVC, CIC chiefs chosen; announcement after Prez nod

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and Central Information Commission (CIC) will soon have heads after a gap of nine months, with government and the Opposition on Monday arriving at a consensus on the names for the top posts.

However, the names will be announced only after President Pranab Mukherjee gives his approval. The recommendations have gone to Rashtrapati Bhavan, but the wait may extend till Thursday, as he is on a five-day foreign visit.

The Narendra Modi government has faced the ire of Opposition as well as activists for not filling the posts of chief vigilance commissioner and central information commissioner. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi had recently raised the issue.

Consensus on the names came in the second meeting in nine days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired two meetings to select the commissioners, in which the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge also participated.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley attended the meeting on the selection of the CIC while Home Minister Rajnath Singh attended the meeting on choosing the CVC. Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh also attended the meetings.

The meetings also cleared the names for three information commissioners and one vigilance commissioner.

“The panels have met and their recommendations sent to the President's office. All the names against the vacant posts have also been sent to the President. I cannot tell you the names. The meeting was confidential,” Kharge told reporters after the meeting.

He added that there was “no question of agreement or disagreement” on the names as of now. The selection panels had met on May 23, but the meeting had remained inconclusive. The post of CIC fell vacant after Rajiv Mathur's tenure ended on August 22, 2014. There were 203 applicants, including all seven information commissioners, for the post of the CIC and 553 for the post of information commissioners.

The CVC post fell vacant after the tenure of Pradeep Kumar ended on September 28, 2014, while vigilance commissioner J M Garg completed his tenure on September 7. The Centre had received about 130 applications for the two posts at the anti-corruption watchdog.