Oct30,2020: Former diplomat and Central Information Commissioner Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha is tipped to be appointed as the country’s next Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), two months after the position at the top transparency watchdog fell vacant, sources said on Thursday.
The decision was taken after an October 24 meeting of the high-powered selection panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, Congress Leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also a member of the panel, is learnt to have submitted a dissent note.
The Opposition leader objected to the manner in which the shortlisting process was carried out, alleging a failure to follow the Supreme Court’s transparency guidelines, issued in a February 2019 case brought by RTI (Right to Information) activist Anjali Bhardwaj. Mr. Chowdhury also objected to the fact that journalist Uday Mahurkar had been shortlisted for a Commissioner position although he had not been on the list of applicants.
Mr. Sinha is a retired officer of the Indian Foreign Service and has previously served as India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and to Sri Lanka. He was appointed as a member of the Central Information Commission in January 2019.
The Commission is the highest appellate authority under the Right to Information Act, and consists of a Chief and up to ten Commissioners. It has been headless twice this year, due to a two month delay in appointing the last chief Bimal Julka, and another two month period since he retired at the end of August. It has not functioned at full strength for almost four years, and currently has only five Commissioners, leading to a backlog of almost 37,000 pending cases.
