Heeralal Samariya sworn in as Chief Information Commissioner

NEW DELHI: Information Commissioner Heeralal Samariya was on Monday sworn in as the chief of the Central Information Commission (CIC) by President Droupadi Murmu.

The top post of the transparency panel was lying vacant after Y K Sinha's term ended on October 3.

President Murmu administered the oath of office to Samairya at a function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here, officials said After Samariya's appointment as the Chief Information Commissioner, there exists a vacancy of eight Information Commissioners.

At present, there are two Information Commissioners in the Commission.

The Commission is headed by the Chief Information Commissioner and can have a maximum of 10 Information Commissioners.

The appointment comes after the Supreme Court had on October 30 asked the Centre and the state governments to take steps to fill the post, saying otherwise the 2005 law on Right to Information will become a “dead letter”.

Taking a serious note of vacancies in the CIC and state information commissions (SICs), a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra had also asked the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to collect information from all states on aspects, including the sanctioned strength of information commissioners in the SICs, vacancies at present and the total number of pending cases there.