HC to AP chief secretary: Explain why you did not fill up RTI commissioner posts?

HYDERABAD: The

Hyderabad high court

on Friday gave two weeks time to the

Andhra Pradesh chief secretary

to file a counter affidavit within two weeks explaining why they failed in appointing information commissioners in the AP Information Commission under the provisions of Right to Information Act.

The bench of acting chief justice

Ramesh Ranganathan

and Justice M Ganga Rao gave this direction while hearing a contempt petition filed by

M Padmanabha Reddy

of

Forum For Good Governance

who charged the state with dodging the issue despite an assurance given to the court last year. The court issued a notice to the AP CS and sought an affidavit from him explaining the reasons for the failure on the part of the state.

In fact, it was only after a PIL was moved by the forum the states of AP and Telangana have constituted State Information Commissions. The state of Telangana could complete the process of appointing chief information commissioner and information commissioners. But the state of AP was found lagging behind here. Though it had issued orders announcing the formation of the AP Information Commission, the posts of information commissioners were not filled up so far. In September last year, AP took 8 weeks time to complete the process. Despite the passage of that the posts were not filled up leaving the RTI movement in a defunct state. It was in this background, the forum moved a contempt plea.