State Information Commissions

Taking serious note of vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC) and state information commissions (SICs), the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre and the state governments to apprise it about the steps taken to fill up the posts. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan said the states that have initiated the process of filling up the vacant posts should complete the process within four weeks. Pointing out that there are eight vacancies in CIC out of the 11 sanctioned posts including that of chief information commissioner, the bench asked Additional Solicitor General Brijender Chahar, appearing for the Centre, to file an affidavit within two weeks about the steps taken to fill up the vacancies. Since February 2019, the apex court has given several directions on the need for timely appointments to the transparency watchdog by the Centre and states so that the 2005 law on the Right to Information remains effective. The court said on Tuesday that in Jharkhand

Former West Bengal DGP Virendra was on Wednesday appointed as the State Information Commissioner(SIC), state Parliamentary Affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said. The meeting to select the new SIC was held at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's chamber at the state assembly. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP skipped the meeting citing violation of the "advertising guidelines for inviting applications". Banerjee chaired the meeting. "There were 15 applications for the post of which 10 were found valid. The CM proposed Virendra's name and we supported it. Virendra has been appointed as the new state information commissioner," Chattopadhyay said after the meeting. Later speaking to reporters on the appointment of Virendra as the new State Information Commissioner, Adhikari said, "The meeting is illegal, it has met twice before. The Governor did not sign. I hope the Governor will not sign the appointment of Information Commissioner this time as well. All India level

Since FY17, the budget allocation for information commissions has shrunk by 82.7% from Rs 31.9 crore

The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC), which imposed the ban, listed 'using RTI Act to harass government officials' and 'filing multiple queries' as the reasons

SICs across India either did not respond to phone calls or said they were working with minimal staff members and remained unsure about resuming hearings

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, told the top court that despite its instructions, the governments did not fill up the positions

According to the study, pendency in the Assam SIC went up by 240%, while Odisha & Punjab went up by more than 60%