CIC expansion: LK skips meet, wants babus out

Publication: Times Of India Delhi; Date: Aug 23, 2008; Section: Times Nation; Page: 15
Manoj Mitta | TNN

New Delhi: The government has suffered the mortification of postponing a meeting required under the RTI Act as the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, L K Advani, refused to attend it unless a fresh list of names was drawn up for the proposed expansion of the Central Information Commission (CIC).

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday, Advani cited three reasons for declining to attend the meeting that was scheduled to take place the same evening between these two and home minister Shivraj Patil, who constitute a committee under Section 12(3) of the Act, to select the information commissioners proposed to be added to the existing five in CIC.

Advani referred to the TOI report of August 19 stating that “public-spirited activists who have been in the forefront of this campaign for transparency in government have taken exception to the fact that government’s choice of information commissioners is limited to retiring bureaucrats.”

Advani said the objection of the activists was “justified” as the RTI Act gave the committee “a very wide choice” by laying down that the information commissioners shall be “persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism and mass media or administration and governance.”

He was also miffed at the fact that the government seemed to have sent him the names more for information than for consultation. The agenda containing the names of five nominees was sent to him just a day before the scheduled meeting, that too without any prior information.

“In meetings of this nature where nominations for important positions are to be decided,” Advani said, “names are invariably discussed with members of the committee informally before they are formally placed before the committee.”

Apart from such procedural violations, the BJP leader expressed “serious reservations about the agenda as circulated.” He wrote to the PM that he had “communicated my reservations orally” to the home minister.

Within hours of receiving his letter, Manmohan Singh replied to Advani saying that in deference to his request, the meeting had been postponed. The PM did not however respond to any of the issues raised by Advani. Instead, putting the ball in Advani’s court, Manmohan Singh said, “If you have any names to suggest for appointment as information commissioners, you may like to send them to me early.”

It is meanwhile learnt that the five nominees of the government include Satyananda Mishra, who is retiring shortly as secretary of the department of personnel and training (DOPT), which is the nodal agency of RTI. If the committee approves his name, it would set a pattern as even in 2005, the year in which RTI was enacted and CIC was established as an appellate authority under it, DOPT had appointed its then secretary, A N Tiwari, as one of the information commissioners.