On Monday, Information Commissioner Heeralal Samariya was sworn in as the Chief Information Commissioner by President Droupadi Murmu. After YK Sinha’s term ended on October 3, the top post of the panel was lying vacant. Today, President Murmu administered the oath of office to Heeralal Samariya at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
After Samariya’s appointment, there exists a vacancy of 8 Information Commissioners. Currently, there are two Information Commissioners and the commission is headed by the Chief Information Commissioner. It can have a maximum of 10 Information Commissioners.
The appointment came after the Supreme Court asked the centre and state governments on October 30 to take concrete steps to fill the post of Chief Information Commissioner. The Court noted that otherwise the 2005 law of Right to Information will become a dead letter.
Taking a serious note of vacancies in the CIC and state information commissions (SIS), a bench comprised of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked the Departments of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to collect information including the approved strength of Information Commissioners in the SICs, vacancies and total number of pending cases.
