RTI Commissioner within a month: CM
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 23 April 2013 14:30 IST
Chief minister Manohar Parrikar has assured to appoint Chief Information Commissioner within a month.
In response to the assurance on the floor of the House, RTI activist Rajan Ghate has withdrawn his plan to sit on an indefinite hunger strike from today evening.
Replying to the issue raised by BJP MLA Nilesh Cabral during Zero Hour, Parrikar said the government would invite applications within eight days.
The appointment was delayed due to the Supreme Court judgment, not a fault on our part, said the chief minister.
The Supreme Court has recently reviewed and reverted its own order that the State Chief Information Commissioner has to be a retired judge.
“It was contrary to the RTI Act. In fact legal knowledge is one of the preferred criteria for the Information Commissioner”, said Parrikar.
This is the third time the state government would invite applications for the Information Commissioner.
The act does not make it compulsory to advertise and invite applications. But I did it at a suggestion made by my national level RTI friends to widen the scope, informed Parrikar to the House.
The act, according to him, gives this right to the chief minister and the opposition leader.
However, the state government’s first selection – Pandurang Nadkarni – caught up into controversy due to allegations made against him and demand to have a person with legal background.
“All the allegations made against him were totally false, but an upright person like Nadkarni could not digest these false allegations and withdrew”, said Parrikar.
When the government selected retired officer Pradeep Padwal, the chief minister said he had to withdraw due to the Supreme Court order.
When Congress MLA Mauvin Godinho suggested to choose one person from the same old list, Parrikar felt it would be better to advertise again as some old applicants may not want to apply again due to unnecessary character assassination made by some RTI activists.
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