Kerala Government flouts Supreme Court guidelines on info commissioners

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government, even after repeated queries, continues to conceal relevant details related to the appointment of new information commissioners.

The General Administration Department, which is in charge of the appointments, has been silent on the two major requirements for the appointment of commissioners.

One, about the advertisements they had put out in popular media inviting applications for the two vacant posts. And two, the number of applicants who have applied for the post.

A month ago, the GAD had admitted in a reply to an RTI query that appointments were done “without proper advertisement”. “Previous appointments of Information Commissioners were not through the publishing of advertisements,” the additional secretary and appeal authority said in reply to a query filed by RTI activist M. T. Thomas. Other conditions laid down by the apex court, too, were blatantly violated by the state.

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 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. None of these have been complied with.

“The refusal of the copies of the applications received, if any, is very clear as to the clandestine intent of the government to appoint ineligible candidates through the backdoor, through non-transparent means,” said M. T. Thomas, a member of the state committee of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI).