THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala High Court has directed the state government to furnish the steps it had taken to fill up the vacant posts of information commissio-ners within three weeks.
The Court’s directive has come following a writ petition filed by M.A. Pookoya, the state coordinator of National Campaign for the People’s Right to Inform-ation, stating that fair and transparent methods were not employed for the selection of commissioners.
The state information commission has virtually ceased to function. With the chief information commissioner on a three-month leave.
The SIC is a deserted place except for a single information commissioner C.S. Sasikumar who is on duty. As of now, there are 7,450 appeal petitions and 2,472 complaint petitions pending before the SIC.
In the beginning of 2015, the SIC was a six-member body, including CIC Siby Mathews. The RTI Act stipulates the maximum strength of the SIC as 10. Soni Then-gamom, another IC, is reportedly bedridden. And the third IC, K. Natarajan, is under suspension. Two other ICs — Dr Kurias Kumba-lakuzhy and M.N. Gunavardhanan — retired on March 20 and April 15 this year respectively.
The writ petition states that the state government had violated the norms set by the Supreme Court for the appointment of information commissioners.
The main stipulations of the Supreme Court judgement in the Namit Sharma vs Union of India case are four.
One, the panel of prospective commissioners should be prepared only after due advertisement through popular media. Two, the panel has to be placed before a high-powered committee which has to adopt a fair and transparent method of recommending the names for appointment to the competent authority.
Three, the names proposed should be three times the existing vacancies. Four, the selection process should commence at least three months prior to the creation of the vacancy. The writ petition states that none of these were complied with.
