BackCIC decides to resume hearing cases
Supreme Court on Thursday asked for increased representation of judicial members in information commissions across the country
Premium(Pradeep Gaur/Mint)
New Delhi: The Central Information Commission (CIC) on Friday said it will resume hearings until the Union government decides on the Supreme Court Thursday’s order seeking increased representation of judicial members in information commissions across the country.
“We would send a reference to the government of India seeking their views and asking them if there is anything in the judgement for us to implement. Till then, we have decided to hear all the cases and continue as before," Satyanand Mishra, chief information commissioner of India, said after a one-hour meeting at CIC.
The meeting of the nine-member CIC was attended by all the information commissioners. They unanimously decided to continue hearing cases.
As of now, the stand of the 28 state information commissions on whether they will hear cases or not is unclear.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said information commissions at the central and state levels should have two-person benches, with one of them being a “judicial member" and the other an “expert member".
This had prompted CIC to suspend hearings to enable it to seek the government’s opinion and led to criticism from some right-to-information activists, who said the proposal could lead to delays as changes were made to the commissions.
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