All posts of Information Commissioners vacant in Jharkhand SIC
11 Mar, 2013The Chief Information Commissioner of Jharkhand State Information Commission (SIC) Justice (retired) D.K.Sinha has temporarily suspended hearing of all appeals and complaints under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The reason behind the action is that there is not even a single information commissioner in the state.
The State Information Commission (SIC) of Jharkhand has a sanctioned strength of ten information commissioners to hear the cases filed under RTI Act but all the posts are lying vacant and no appointment has been made for more than a year. The SIC receives on an average around 50 to 60 petitions each day and already more than 30 appeals and hundreds of complaints and review petitions are pending with the commission for over a year.
In 2011, the appointment committee had selected four names for the post of information commissioners but none of them was appointed due to lack of required experience. Later on Mr. Sinha was appointed as the Chief Information Commissioner of SIC. In 2012 too, the committee had sent three names for the final approval from the Governor. As per the principal secretary to the governor, the names are still under review by the governor and the decision is still awaited.
The situation in most information commissions across the country remains more or less the same.