New Delhi: Heeralal Samariya, a senior bureaucrat, assumed the role as the chief of the Central Information Commissioner (CIC) a day before the deadline, by President Droupadi Murmu, on November 6, 2023. This appointment marks him as the first Dalit individual to hold this esteemed position.
The leadership of the transparency panel had remained vacant after YK Sinha’s term concluded on October 3. Samariya previously served as the Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
The Commission is overseen by the Chief Information Commissioner and can comprise a maximum of 10 information commissioners.
The appointment follows the Supreme Court’s directive on October 30 to the central and state governments to address the vacant positions, emphasising that the 2005 Right to Information Act would otherwise become ineffective.
“The Right to Information Act of 2005 will become a dead letter,” stated the Chief Justice.
A bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, instructed the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to gather information from all states regarding the number of authorised information commissioners in the State Information Commissions (SIC), existing vacancies, and the total count of pending cases.
In December 2019, the Supreme Court had already directed both central and state governments to fill all information commissioner vacancies at the CIC and SICs within a three-month timeframe, highlighting the necessity to establish guidelines to prevent the misuse of the Right to Information Act.
Furthermore, authorities were instructed to publicly disclose the names of the search committee members responsible for the selection and appointment of information commissioners (ICs) at the CIC on their respective websites.
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