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Setback for CM as governor rejects RTI appointments
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who has been desperately trying to establish himself as a ‘no-nonsense, always correct’ leader in the past few months, has been put on the mat by none other than the government-friendly Governor E S L Narasimhan, who has returned the file pertaining to the controversial appointment of eight information commissioners under the RTI Act.
The appointment of the information commissioners including four who are associated with the ruling Congress last month had led to massive protests by the opposition and RTI activists.
Following the uproar, Governor Narasimhan, returning the file, asked the government to reconsider the matter. The governor’s move came on a day when RTI activists had launched a novel protest in the city holding “people’s ballot” seeking public opinion over the controversial selections. The activists held similar ‘people’s ballot’ across the state last week to build public opinion against the appointment of active politicians and serving officials as information commissioners.
The peeved activists decided to launch the protest after Kiran Kumar Reddy told them at a meeting that there was nothing wrong with the appointments and he would not go back on it.
The state government had last month appointed eight information commissioners at one go. However, a majority of them are either active members of the ruling Congress or have been recommended by the ruling party bigwigs. There are allegations that political considerations alone had guided the selection process. The appointment of S Imtiaz Ahmed, Lam Tantiya Kumari, M Vijaya Nirmala and Varre Venkateswarlu, all associated with the Congress, triggered widespread protests.
The RTI activists expressed dismay over the selection and said that such an approach would undermine the spirit of the RTI Act. “The entire institution has been converted into yet another rehabilitation centre for politicians and retired bureaucrats, some of whom do not even know how to file RTI application,” a leading RTI activist Rakesh Kumar said. The RTI campaigners have been opposing appointment of retired bureaucrats on the ground that they were very much part of the system and would never fully appreciate the public right to information. There is also a demand for barring politicians from becoming information commissioners as they would be more inclined to protect the party in power.
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