Over 500 in race for job of information commissioners

NEW DELHI: Over 550 people including sitting and former bureaucrats are among the applicants for four vacant posts of information commissioners at the Central Information Commission.
The list of applicants given in an RTI response includes former I&B secretary U K Varma, former textile secretary Zohra Chatterjee, former secretary in the department of personnel Shyamal Kumar Sarkar, former defence secretary Sangita Gairola, former secretary in social justice and empowerment ministry Stuti Narain Kacker, former road secretary Brahm Dutt, shipping secretary Vishwapati Trivedi, DD DG (news) Archana Dutta apart from lawyers, activists and others.
Other bureaucrats who have applied include Railway Board chairman Arunendra Kumar, board member (mechanical) Alok Johri, former secretary in HRD Ashok Thakur, diplomats like Nagesha Rao Parthasarthy, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty and Ashok Kumar Attri.
Lt Gen (retd) Anil Chait, Lt Gen (retd) N C Marwah, former CRPF DG Vikram Srivastava also figure in the list which includes activists Girish Mittal and Varun Arya among others.
The department of personnel and training disclosed this list in response to a RTI query by Lokesh Batra adding that 553 applicants applied for the post of information commissioners in the CIC.
It said a search committee chaired by the cabinet secretary has been constituted to shortlist names for placing before the selection committee chaired by the Prime Minister.
According to RTI Act, the CIC can have a chief information commissioner and 10 ICs whereas there are only seven ICs in the commission at present. The transparency panel became headless in July after the retirement of then chief Rajiv Mathur and no new appointment has been made since.