Supreme Court asks Centre to fill vacant posts in CIC within 3 months

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central government to fill up the vacant posts in the Central Information Commission (CIC) within three months.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde passed the order on a petition filed by RTI activists seeking directions to the Centre to fill the vacancies in both the Central and State Information Commissions in a "transparent and time-bound manner".

The top court also asked the authorities to put on the government website the names of members of the search committee for appointment of Central Information Commissioners within two weeks.

It raised concerns over the need to have a "filter" for people filing RTI who seek information but have nothing to do with the concerned issue.

"We can understand somebody asking information about Electoral Bonds, but asking information about tender of business... Why would someone without any interest want to get information?" said CJI Bobde.

The Chief Justice of India added, "People who are in no way connected to an issue seek information. It sometimes amounts to criminal intimidation, which is a nice word for blackmail. We are not against RTI. We are not against the flow of information. We have to have some guidelines.