DoPT - Shortlisiting of candidates for the vacant posts at CIC done
11 May, 2015Before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw of the Delhi High Court, the Union government submitted that the process of appointment of the Chief Information Commissioner and information commissioners at the Central Information Commission (CIC) is progress. In an affidavit, the government assured the High Court that the process is at an advanced stage and the candidates have been shortlisted.
The bench is hearing PIL filed by RTI activists RK Jain, Lokesh K Batra and Subhash Chandra Agarwal seeking directions for filling the vacancies at CIC. In the earlier hearing, the Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain had sought 12 weeks’ time to finalise the appointments and the bench had taken up the work of monitoring the same.
In its submissions, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said that “In continuation of earlier meetings held on January 16, 2015 and February 6, 2015, the search committee again met on April 27, 2015 and short listed applicants for the posts of Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners (IC). Vigilance clearance from the respective cadre controlling authority in respect of the shortlisted serving officers and inputs from the Intelligence Bureau in respect of retired officers has been sought vide communications dated May 5, 2015 and May 2, 2015, respectively.” Explaining the process of appointment, the affidavit says after the receipt of the inputs, the selection would be made by the selection committee headed by the Prime Minister as per the RTI Act, 2005.