Vacancies of the Karnataka State Information Commission to be filled
5 Oct, 2013The State government is planning to fill the vacant posts of information commissioners in the Karnataka State Information Commission (KIC). The Karnataka SIC has conveyed the need to fill vacancies of commissioners to the state government. The KIC began functioning with three commissioners and in 2010, the strength was doubled. There are nearly 15,000 appeals pending before the SIC and the government is contemplating constituting divisional level benches of the commission for a quick disposal of appeals.
Currently, there are six information commissioners, four of which are retired bureaucrats including Chief Information Commissioner A.K.M. Nayak, who is a former Additional Chief Secretary. The rest of the two information commissioners comprise of a member of the Bar and a member of the medical profession. The names of the information commissioners are D. Thangaraj, M.R. Pujar, Shekhar D. Sajjanar, J.S. Virupakshaiah and T. Rama Naik. There are five vacancies now and with the retirement of J.S. Virupakshaiah in near future, the vacancies would rise to six.
As per the Right to Information Act, there can be 10 information commissioners, apart from the Chief Information Commissioner. With the decision in the review petition in the Namit Sharma case, the confusion over the appointment in the Information Commission has been removed by the Supreme Court.