No CIC, 3 members for 6 months, 1 lakh appeals pending: Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde | India News

MUMBAI: Chief minister Ekanth Shinde told the legislative council last week that posts of the chief information commissioner (CIC) and three information commissioners (ICs) are vacant in Maharashtra. In a written reply to a question raised by MLCs Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil and Satyajit Tambe, Shinde said the government issued advertisements inviting applications for the posts in February 2023 and scrutiny of applications was going on. Shinde said over 1 lakh second appeals were pending before the state information commission (SIC) as of May 2023.

The term of the last CIC, former chief secretary Summit Mullick, ended earlier this year. Officials said retired IAS officers, who are usually appointed as CIC and ICs, especially those like former chief secretaries, lost interest in the post after its tenure was reduced from five to three years.
Former IAS officer Sunil Porwal who is the IC for Mumbai, is also holding charge for CIC. “Retired bureaucrats want five-year post retirement postings and not just three years, and so they are not applying as enthusiastically as they used to. Many officers who retired recently have applied for postings that have a fixed five-year tenure,” an official said.

The selection committee to pick the CIC and ICs comprises the CM, deputy CM and the opposition leader (of the legislative assembly). However, there has been no opposition leader in the assembly after NCP’s Ajit Pawar joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government.
“At the moment, existing ICs are holding additional charge for the vacant posts. Based on the search committee’s recommendations and on approval of the governor, the appointments of CIC and ICs will be made,” Shinde said in his reply.
Officials said vacancies remain from six months to over a year. IC posts in Maharashtra have been created as per geographical zone – Mumbai, Brihanmumbai, Konkan, Nashik, Amaravati, Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad. Commissioners are yet to be appointed for Amravati, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Konkan and Mumbai headquarters. Citizens and activists have been demanding the appointment of experts as information commissioners instead of retired bureaucrats in order to speed up clearance of appeals.
The RTI Act states that people of ’eminence in public life’ can be appointed as ICs. But out of the eight posts in the state information commission, including that of the CIC, most have been former bureaucrats barring a few exceptions like journalist Rahul Pande, who was appointed IC for Nagpur and is holding charge for Amravati division too.