Hearing a petition demanding the appointment of a person other than a bureaucrat as the Chief Information Commissioner, the Delhi High Court said it was not necessary that all government officials were incompetent.
A bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Murlidhar refused to accept the plea by an NGO Transparency International along with Krishna Rao and six others demanding that government officials should not be preferred over other eligible candidates.
The petition said the CIC was an important post to function with transparency. For appointment to the post, CIC, it should be widely advertised so that those who have held key positions in high offices of the public administration do not take over the post as it creates threat of conflict of interest.
The present selection process is done by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and a Union Minister nominated by the Prime Minister.
The NGO has pleaded that the government should select such candidates for quasi-judicial posts whose occupational backgrounds make them predisposed to conflict of interest.
The petition also stated that since the government does not advertise or make efforts to get independent, talented and qualified persons from other walks of life, they deprive the citizen the right to be served by well-qualified second appellate authorities in matters of Right to Information (RTI).
To this, the bench commented, ‘It is not necessary that all Government officials are incompetent.’ The present CIC Wajahat Habibullah, who resigned recently to take up his new appointment as Jammu and Kashmir Information Commissioner, was yet to assume charge as his resignation has not been accepted yet.
The court posted the matter for November 16.
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