President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Heeralal Samariya as CIC in the Central Information Commission at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Monday.
The Maharashtra SIC is without a Chief Information Commissioner and functioning with only four Commissioners even though more than 1,15,000 appeals/complaints are pending, the petitioner said.
He was speaking at the 15th Annual Convention of Central Information Commission titled, “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav: Citizen – centric Governance through RTI” at Vigyan Bhawan.
The provisions under Right to Information Act, 2005 came in force in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh since October 31, 2019.
Undoubtedly, the RTI Act in its original form was one of the most liberal pieces of legislation aimed at enhancing transparency and democratic values. As such, in order to fulfil their perceived role effectively, the CIC and the ICs had been given a status which would enable them to have the power to review the functioning of the government's public information officials and give suitable directions to serve public interest as understood by the rule of thumb definition.
The move comes as Jammu and Kashmir state was divided into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh with effect from October 31, 2019.
Officials at Higher Education said that now in the case of other private educational institutions, which are not financed substantially, the provisions of the HP Private Education Institutions (Regulation) Act, 1997 will be applicable to enforce the RTI ACT.
Like all his predecessors, Bhargava is a retired bureaucrat. The previous chiefs have all had Central service background.
He reportedly died from a massive heart attack but questions were raised on the circumstances of his death on foreign soil when the cold war was at its peak.
It lobbed the matter before the CIC again to consider private contentions in the light of the exemption clauses of Section 8(1) of the act.
