CIC headless for the fifth time in six years as Bimal Julka retires

With the retirement of Bimal Julka on Thursday, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has once again become headless for the fifth time in six years with transparency activists on Friday accusing the government of "frustrating" peoples' right to know.

Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), an organisation working on RTI said, not a single commissioner of the CIC has been appointed without citizens having to approach courts since 2014.

The failure of the government to make timely appointments of commissioners is a flagrant violation of the directions of the Supreme Court, which had said that the process of selection should commence one or two months prior to the vacancy arising.

"This is the fifth time in the last six years that the Commission has been rendered headless. Four posts of information commissioners are also vacant in the CIC. Currently, more than 35,000 appeals and complaints are pending in the commission resulting in citizens having to wait for months, even years for their cases to be disposed, thereby frustrating peoples’ right to know," RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj of SNS said.

She said the repeated failure to appoint the Chief and other commissioners of the CIC in a timely manner appears to be a deliberate attempt by the government to undermine the RTI Act and frustrate peoples' ability to seek information to hold the government accountable.

RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak said the vacancy created in the CIC will severely affect its working as the chief is primarily responsible for the administration and day to day running of the Commission.

"The government has not complied with the Supreme Court's rider that the process of recruitment must commence 1-2 months in advance of the creation of vacancies. The process of filling up the remaining vacant IC post has also stalled after the Covid-19 epidemic started. With the CIC working at barely half it's sanctioned strength, the pendency of cases is likely to cross the 36,000 mark soon," Nayak told DH.

"This amounts to carrying the concept of minimum government to ridiculous extremes. The selection committe must meet immediately to finalise recommendations to the vacant Information Commissioners' posts as the process had already been initiated earlier. Similarly the process of calling for fresh applications to fill up the vacant Chief IC post must be started forthwith," he said.

RTI activist Lokesh Batra said unlike higher judiciary, there is there is no provision in the RTI Act for officiating Chief Information Commissioner.

Noting that the pendency is very high, Batra said, "the government has to be serious about transparency."