Neeraj Kumar Gupta (Retd IAS:1982:UP), Yashwardhan Kumar Sinha (Retd IFS:1981), Vanaja N Sarna (Retd IRS C&CE:1980), and former Law Secretary Suresh Chandra have been appointed Information Commissioners in the Central Information Commission. All these officers retired this year.

 

Sinha is a 1981-batch Indian Foreign Service officer was the High Commissioner of India in the United Kingdom. He had served a number of important postings in the Ministry of External Affairs including the crucial Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran Division, which he headed for four years as Additional Secretary.

 

The only woman in the CIC will be Sarna, a 1980-batch Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Excise) officer, who was the Chief of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

 

Neeraj Kumar Gupta, a 1982-batch IAS officer, was Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management.

 

Chandra, an Indian Legal Service officer, retired as Union law secretary this year and was also private secretary to the then Law Minister Arun Jaitley between 2002 and 2004.

After recent retirements of Chief Information Commissioner R K Mathur and Information Commissioners Yashovardhan Azad, Sridhar Acharyulu and Amitava Bhattacharyya, the Commission, the highest adjudicating authority in RTI matters, was left with three Information Commissioners, prompting activists to approach the Supreme Court on the issue of vacancies.

 

Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, had informed the court that a total of 65 applications were received for the CIC post and 280 applications for the post of four ICs in the Central Information Commission.

 

She had said that after these posts are filled up, notification will be issued for inviting applications for remaining posts of ICs.