Delhi: The former law secretary is likely to be appointed as the Chief Information Commissioner.
Delhi: Former Law Secretary Raj Kumar Goyal is likely to be appointed as the Chief Information Commissioner, while eight others, mostly former civil servants, are being appointed as Information Commissioners, sources said on Saturday. With this, the 11-member Central Information Commission will function at its full strength for the first time in nearly seven years. The central transparency panel had been without a chief since September and was functioning with only two Information Commissioners, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari.
The filling of the vacancies followed a meeting of the selection committee comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi. At the meeting, Rahul Gandhi submitted a dissent note, claiming that there was inadequate representation of “Bahujans,” a claim rejected by the government.
Goyal will replace Hiralal Samariya, the first Dalit chief of the CIC. Samariya, who was appointed Chief Information Commissioner on November 6, 2023, retired on September 13 upon turning 65, leaving the CIC without a chief for the seventh time in 11 years due to the government’s failure to find a successor.
The new Information Commissioners include former Railway Board chairperson Jaya Verma Sinha and Sudha Rani Relangi, who was a member of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. With their appointments, the panel will have three women members.
Former Social Justice and Empowerment Secretary Surendra Singh Meena, former Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi, former IPS officer Swagat Das, who worked in the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Intelligence Bureau, former IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, and senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi are the other new members of the CIC.
Notifications for the appointments are expected to be issued soon.
