SC orders immediate action to fill vacancies in CIC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court directed the directorate of personnel and training to file an affidavit within two weeks apprising it of the steps taken to fill vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC).

The states were also asked to submit affidavits on whether they have complied with multiple directives telling them to make recruitments to state information commissions (SIC). The court expressed anguish over the failure of governments to fill up vacancies in information commissions, which it said defeated the very objective of the Right to Information Act. "These posts need to be filled at the earliest, otherwise what is the use of having the institutions if we don’t have people working there?” the court asked.

It expressed concern over attempts by governments to appoint only bureaucrats as chief information commissioners and information commissioners. “We can take judicial notice of the fact that entire commissions are loaded with only one category of people. Why should only bureaucrats be appointed and why not people from different walks of life be appointed? We don’t want to say more but this needs to be looked into,” a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Kotiswar Singh told the lawyers appearing for the Centre and various states.

The bench was dealing with a PIL filed by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj and others challenging the large number of vacancies in the CIC and SICs and the “reluctance” of successive governments to comply with the directives of the top court to fill the posts.