SC directs Centre, States to take steps to fill vacancies in CIC, SICs
Oct 30, 2023
New Delhi [India], October 30 : The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Centre and the State governments to take steps to fill the vacancies in the Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions (SICs).
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra observed that the 2005 law on the Right to Information (RTI) will become a "dead letter" if vacancies are not filled.
It further asked the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to collect information from all States on several aspects including the sanctioned strength of SICs, vacancies and the total number of pending cases there.
The CJI took note of the submission that SICs in States like Jharkhand, Tripura and Telangana have become defunct and granted the Centre and States three weeks' time to furnish the information.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj alleging that the apex court's 2019 judgement on issues including timely filling up of vacancies in the CIC and SICs have not been followed by the Centre and States.
Supreme Court said that the RTI Act will become a 'dead letter' if vacancies in information commissions are not filled
Currently, the CIC is headless and functioning with only four Commissioners, all of whom are set to retire by November 6, 2023, following which the CIC will become defunct.
The Maharashtra SIC is without a Chief Information Commissioner and functioning with only four Commissioners even though more than 1,15,000 appeals/complaints are pending, the petitioner said.
Jharkhand SIC has been completely defunct since May 2020 and the SICs of Telangana and Tripura are also non-functional, the top court was informed.
By its 2019 order, the apex court had passed a slew of directions to the Central and State governments to fill vacancies across Central and State Information Commissions in a transparent and timely manner. In its order, the court had given three months to the Centre to fill the vacancies that existed in the CIC.
The top court had also directed the authorities concerned to put on the website the names of members of the search committee, meant for the selection and appointment of CIC's information commissioners (ICs), within two weeks.
