The Odisha government’s appointments to the State Information Commission (SIC) last week came after a long wait. It picked a full-time state chief information commissioner and three information commissioners at one go. The move lends strength to the panel that was operating with just two information commissioners since October and would hopefully expedite the disposal of information requests and clear the backlog of more than 10,000 appeals.
However, what came as a surprise was the government’s decision to select three retired government service officers. Two of them, including the state CIC, retired as IAS officers, while the third was an IPS officer. It’s not that bureaucrats have not been picked for these positions earlier, but not in such a number at once.
A report prepared in 2019-2020 by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan and Centre for Equity Studies had found that close to 59 percent of information commissioners were retired government officers. The question is whether a panel loaded with former bureaucrats would allow smooth access to information that can hold the government answerable.
The Right To Information Act 2005 clearly laid out that the state CIC and information commissioners should be persons of eminence in public life and even specified diverse fields such as law, social service, science and technology, management, journalism, administration and governance, from which they can be selected by a committee headed by the chief minister with the leader of the opposition and a cabinet minister as members.
One standout feature of the law is that it defined the basket of expertise from which the commissioners could be picked. Filling it with ex-bureaucrats would go against the act’s spirit. In 2019, the Supreme Court had observed that states must look beyond bureaucrats while selecting CICs and information commissioners.
Today, access to information about the government faces increasing challenges, with more requests rejected or delayed. The law’s spirit is facing a dilution as debate over the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 rages. The RTI Act is one of the most consequential legislations India has seen in the last two decades. Giving common people the right to access information about public authorities is a powerful tool to make governments answerable. Ensuring the tool’s effectiveness would require striking a fine balance in the information commissions’ composition.