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| Wajahat stuck in Delhi: no information about Chief Information Commissioner | | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, DEC 3: Strangely, there is no information regarding the Centre’s next Right to Information (RTI) Commission boss. And, thus, the present incumbent, Mr Wajahat Habibullah, is in a way stuck in Delhi despite his keenness to go to Jammu and Kashmir and set up the State RTI office.
The result of this delay in the appointment of Mr Habibullah’s successor leaves him less than 10 months time to accomplish the task of setting the RTI machinery in J&K rolling. Mr Habibullah would attain 65 years of age in September 2010. The RTI boss as per the new law at the Centre as well as in J&K can remain in office only until the age of 65.
Last month Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Mr LK Advani, for talks over the filling up the office of the Chief Information Commissioner since Mr Habibullah has to be relieved to join as CIC J&K. Yet the talks did not move beyond parlaying and it was decided that a panel of names for the next CIC at the Centre would be drawn by Union Law Minister, Mr Veerappa Moily in consultation with Mr Advani’s party colleague Mr Arun Jaitly.
Soon the Prime Minister left for his Washington visit and he could not meet Mr Advani ever since to decide as to who should be appointed to the post of CIC in Delhi. Now sources say that the meeting between Manmohan Singh and Advani to decide the name of the next CIC for the Centre can take place “any day”.
Sources also maintain that this time the posting of the next CIC in Delhi would materialise since the preparation for drawing up the panel of likely options is almost complete.
This is also being interpreted as the impossibility of promotion of any of the two deputies of Mr Habibullah to the post of CIC. Earlier, Mr Advani had rejected the names of Information Commissioners Mr MA Ansari and Mr AN Tiwari for promotion to the post of the CIC.
In the meantime, as per an agency report a legal notice has been sent to the Prime Minister on behalf of activist Krishna Rao by his lawyer regarding the lack of transparency in the appointment of Mr Habibullah’s successor.
Whatever may be the case, the delay in the appointment of the CIC at the Centre signifies on the one hand the lack of information about the appointment of the top most information dispensing authority of the entire country and delay in opening up the office of the CIC in Jammu and Kashmir.
This becomes all the more glaring since Mr Habibullah is running out of time because his retirement age is nearing. Moreover, Mr Habibullah is also seen as an interlocutor between separatists and Centre. And, this is the role that he might quietly been playing while waiting to be formally put in CIC’s office in J&K.
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