Hyderabad: Consequent to the demitting of Chief Information Commissioner M. Ratan recently, neither Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan nor governments of TS and AP made any alternative arrangements like appointing the head of the institution. This oversight has resulted in the Information Commission becoming rudderless.
On earlier occasions, whenever Chief Information Commissioners demitted office, one of the senior Information Commissioners was given full additional charge as CIC to head the institution as well as allotting work among commissioners to dispose off regular appeals that come to the Commission.
However, it so happened that Mr Ratan demitted office on April 22 and he did not hand over charge to the only available commissioner P. Vijay Babu as there were no orders from the Governor or from the government.
With this Mr Vijaya Babu remained an Information Commissioner, but since he was not given additional charge as CIC, he remained confined to the responsibility allotted to him.
Effectively, the office of Chief Information Com-missioner and the Commission both became rudderless from the next working day i.e. from Monday.
Meanwhile, Vijay Babu wrote to Governor who is the appointing authority explaining the seque-nce of events, the fact that Information Comm-ission has now become rudderless and is unable to dispose off any appeals.
He has also included a note circulated to him by Mr Ratan at the time of demitting office on April 22 that he has passed final orders on one appeal filed by Mangalagiri MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy with regard to AP Legislature Secretary educational qualifications and the same may be disposed of by him.
Mr Vijay Babu said when he was not given additional charge or the portfolios held by Mr Ratan, he could not do anything on the appeals hence sought advice from Governor on how to proceed further.
The State Information Commission that was formed in 2005 has now become defunct as it was not part of the institutions meant for division among TS and AP and no clarity on appointment of fresh commissions by respective states.
Mr Vijay Babu also will be demitting office on May 13, making the commission nonexistent.
