Activists want urgent SC hearing on vacancies in Central Information Commission

The application for urgent hearing was filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan

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Activists have approached the Supreme Court, filing an application for an urgent hearing on the issue of six out of 11 posts of information commissioners, including the Chief Commissioner, in the Central Information Commission lying vacant even as there is currently a backlog of over 36,600 cases in the appellate body.

The urgent hearing has been sought in an ongoing matter regarding delayed or non-appointment of information commissioners to the state and central information commissions that is leading to increased backlogs before the Commissioners and resulting in long delays in disposal of appeals and complaints.

The application for urgent hearing was filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan on behalf of transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj and others.

The Supreme Court, in its order in December 2019, had given three months to the Centre to fill the vacancies that existed in the CIC and directed that the matter be listed before it on March 25, 2020.

On January 11, 2020, the CIC retired, and the total number of vacancies went up to five. On March six 2020, the appointment of a new information commissioner and selection of an existing commissioner—Bimal Julka—as the chief, was notified. The number of vacancies in the CIC remained at four as one of the commissioners was appointed as the chief.
With the retirement of the chief on August 26 this year, curently, there are six posts, including that of the chief lying vacant.

The petitioners say that the order of the court dated December 16, 2019 has not been complied with and the number of vacancies in the CIC have now increased to six.
It was further submitted that it appears that the Centre is resorting to issuing fresh advertisements instead of filling all the advertised vacant posts in a bid to cause undue delay in the appointments.

According to the petitioners, no reasons have been furnished by the respondent as to why four vacancies were not filled pursuant to the advertisement dated December 12, 2019 and the order of the court dated December 16, 2019 and instead after filling only one vacancy now this new advertisement dated July 12, 2020 has been put out.

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