Nearly 18000 appeals and complaints pending before the MP SIC
10 Sep, 2013Nearly 18,000 complaints and appeals are pending with the state information commission of Madhya Pradesh due to the redundant state information commission (SIC). The order is yet to be fully implemented by the state government.
In January 2013, the High Court had issued directions to initiate measures to constitute the state information commission within three weeks. Following the retirement of the chief information commissioner Iqbal Ahmed on December 31 last year, the cases have been piling up before the SIC. A division bench comprising of the Chief Justice KK Lahoti and Justice Subhash Kekde of the Madhya Pradesh has now given a six-day deadline to the state government to inform the action plan for filling the vacancies of the information commissioners at the state information commission by the September 11.
An advertisement for the posts of state information commissioner and chief information commissioner was issued by the state government in June 2013 for which more than 200 applications were received. Further processing is yet to be done in the matter. Activists have demanded that the state government should constitute the commission as soon as possible.