PIL seeks information commissioner’s removal

AHMEDABAD: A civil rights activist, Praful Desai, on Wednesday filed a PIL demanding the removal of D P Thakar as information commissioner on the grounds that he was not eligible for the post. A bench of Chief Justice R S Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi has scheduled the matter for order on November 21. Earlier, Desai, of Jagte Raho Party, had been instrumental in the issuance of high court’s directions to the state government to fill the post of the information commissioner so that long pendency of queries under the Right to Information Act could be resolved in a proper manner.
Desai has been filing PILs on the issue of the appointment of information commissioner for the past couple of months. On his first PIL, the high court directed the state government to appoint two information commissioners. Accordingly, the government appointed B G Panchasara and Shridevi Shukla. But Desai objected to the appointments on the grounds that the duo was not eligible for the posts and filed another PIL in the HC to remove them.