SC order calls for appointment of judges to RTI panels

The Central Information Commission (CIC) and State Information Commissions will now be headed by judges, in accordance with a Supreme Court judgment yesterday that puts an end to the practice of retired civil servants gracing the statutory bodies constituted under the Right to Information 2005.

Going by the rule that the functions of the CIC and the State Information Commissions were fundamentally judicial in nature, a bench of justices AK Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar ruled that, ''Chief Information Commissioner at the Centre or State level shall only be a person who is or has been a chief justice of the high court or a judge of the Supreme Court." Such appointments would be in consultation with the chief justice of India, it added.

The court further held that sittings of the commissions at centre and states would be held with benches comprising two members each, one a judicial member and the other an expert member drawn from among persons of public eminence having wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media, or administration and governance.

With this the court held that the centre may preferably consider appointment of judges and lawyers as information commissioners as well.

The Central Information Commission (CIC), the watchdog charged with the oversight of  the Right to Information (RTI) Act, decided to stop work soon after, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported quoting a source. A similar situation might be seen in the states the newspaper said.
 
The CIC would now seek the government's legal opinion.

The CIC had over 17,000 pending cases till August this year which means, there would be at least a three month wait period to get an RTI appeal heard.

The Hindustan Times quoted Shekhar Singh, who was involved in the drafting of RTI law as saying that the  first disastrous effect of the order would be that all (RTI) hearings would have to stop till the appointment of judicial members.