High Court orders for filling up the vacancies of the Manipur Information Commission
2 Jun, 2013A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed with the High Court of Manipur regarding the vacant posts in the Manipur Information Commission.
Since the retirement of the Chief Information Commissioner on 12th September 2011, the information commission has been functioning with lone information commission. The petitioner claimed that the information commission had become defunct after the Supreme Court directive in Namit Sharma case wherein the information commissions had to operate in two-commissioner bench with at least one of them being judicial officer.
The said order has been partially stayed but the SC. Citing Section 15 (1) of RTI Act (Right to Information Act), which mandates the state governments to constitute the state information commission, the division bench of the High Court of Manipur comprising of Chief Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre and Justice N Kotiswar Singh has issued directions to the state government to fill up the vacant posts of the chief information commissioner and other information commissioners within a period of six months.
Apart from Manipur, there are many states in the country where the state information commission has been defunct due to vacancies.