Apex court strictures create doubts in the minds of petitioners

07 December, 2012

It refers to strictures against retired bureaucrats serving as Central Information Commissioners, by the Division Bench of Supreme Court hearing review-petition against its much talked-about verdict on appointment of Information Commissioners.

RETIRED BUREAUCRATS, at least at Central Information Commission have by and large been handling RTI petitions quite well because of their experience in bureaucracy where they get acquainted with irregularities and flaws in the system.

With changed role as transparency-watchdogs, many of their orders exposed scams and irregularities apart from having an effective check on future such happenings. I as per my practical experience can cite numerous such CIC-verdicts where Chief Information Commissioner has lashed out at DoPT where he himself was once holding post of Secretary.

Such strictures not only hurt sentiments of honest persons serving as Information Commissioners, but also tend to unnecessarily create doubts in the minds of petitioners about integrity of Information Commissioners. Even Union government has perhaps for such reasons incorporated clause barring judges passing strictures against constitutional authorities in forthcoming Judicial Accountability Bill.

There may be some isolated cases of bias in appointments, but sweeping remarks by country’s highest court should have been avoided especially at a time when non-transparent appointment-process of judges at higher courts is itself a matter of criticism for definite reasons of bias and ignorance in such appointments. Unfortunately CIC-verdicts on some such appointments of judges are under long stay by courts.