Centre fails to appoint new CIC again as panel goes headless

The country's transparency watchdog, the Central Information Commission has gone headless again with incumbent chief Vijai Sharma completing his tenure on Tuesday and no appointment made by the central government so far.

The situation has arisen second time since the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in 2014. The appellate body remained headless for nearly 10 months after the then chief information commissioner Rajiv Mathur retired in August 2014.

Sharma, who was appointed on June 9, attained the age of 65 on Tuesday and demitted office.

The CIC is the administrative head of the commission and, as per the convention, decides the formation of benches, administrative and financial matters of the commission besides distribution of workload which comes to halt in the absence.

During the 10 months without a chief, over 35,000 cases were accumulated before the panel.

Activist Subhash Agrawal said the government should start the process of appointment well in advance before the tenure of CIC comes to an end so that such situations can be avoided.

Former CIC Shailesh Gandhi said even in the absence of their chief, other information commissioners can start taking decisions jointly and distribute the workload among themselves.

"First the government must ensure that chief commissioner is always there. It is complete carelessness and a neglect of their job. Having said that, I do not think that the chief commissioner does anything great and, really speaking, the commission can function without a chief. For other commissioners to use it as an excuse is also not correct," he said.

Hyderabad-based activist C J Karira took a dig at the outgoing chief saying "Looking at the commission's performance in the last one year, I think it is better that the commission remains headless rather than an incompetent person as the CIC."

Karira said the commission now needs a good administrator.

Another activist Lokesh Batra said the government has recently incorporated 30 years of experience for the post of chief information commissioner which was arbitrary and renders young people ineligible for the post.

In a recent Public Interest Litigation filed through lawyers, eminent jurist Prashant Bhushan had sought filling up of posts of CIC and subordinate staff in a time-bound manner.