Information Officer Heeralal Samariya on Monday formally took oath as the Chief of the Central Information Commission (CIC) in the presence of President Droupadi Murmu, changing into the first Dalit person to assume the place.
President Murmu administered the oath of workplace to Samariya at a operate at Rashtrapati Bhavan right here, officers mentioned. This comes after the Supreme Court directed the Centre and states to make efforts to fill vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC) and State Information Commissions (SICs).
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra noticed that the 2005 legislation on the Right to Information (RTI) will grow to be a “dead letter” if vacancies aren’t stuffed.
Who is Heeralal Samariya?
Samariya was born in a distant and small village in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur District. After changing into an IAS officer, he served as Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Employment. He was additionally a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Chemical and Fertilizers.
The 63-year-old Samariya was chosen for the publish of Chief Information Commissioner, which lay vacant for the reason that time period of YK Sinha ended on October 3. He was sworn in as the Information Commissioner in the CIC on November 7, 2020.
After Samariya’s appointment as the Chief Information Commissioner, there exists a emptiness of eight Information Commissioners. At current, there are two Information Commissioners in the Commission.
The Commission is headed by the Chief Information Commissioner and may have a most of 10 Information Commissioners. A Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners can maintain the workplace until they attain 65 years of age.
What did the Supreme Court say?
The three-judge bench of the apex court docket on October 30 noticed that the big variety of vacancies would defeat “the underlying spirit and express orders” of the court docket. It got here after submissions had been filed by senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj, and mentioned that the SICs had grow to be defunct due to the absence of serving data commissioners.
The SC bench additionally directed the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to collate data from all states and file a standing report, together with on the facet of steps being taken to fill the vacancies in SICs. It additionally requested Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati to help the bench in coping with the matter and requested the listing to be offered after three weeks.
(with ANI inputs)
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