Objection raised over Info Commissioner's selection
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 23 May 2012 13:50 IST
The appointment of a new State Information Commissioner has run into rough weather as the short-listed candidates do not fulfil the criteria laid down in the Right to Information Act.
Social activist Adv. Aires Rodrigues, who widely used the RTI to seek information, has objected to the selection criteria.
In a letter written to chief minister Manohar Parrikar, he has demanded that the selection of the State Information Commissioner should be strictly on merit.
He has also expressed concern over the manner in which the three member screening committee headed by Chief Secretary had short listed three candidates out of the 27 who had applied for the post.
The short-listed candidates, according to Adv Rodrigues, are IAS officer D C Sahoo, who is due to retire on 31st May, Dr Pradip Padwal, former Director of Goa AIDS Society and Pandurang Nadkarni, former Chairman of Goa Secondary and Higher Secondary Board.
Adv Rodrigues has alleged that Sahoo, in 2001, while Managing Director of Industrial Development Corporation was allegedly caught red handed accepting a bribe by then chief minister Parrikar.
Adv Rodrigues has also asked why recently retired Principal of Salgaoncar College of Law Dr. Marian Pinheiro was sidelined by the screening committee.
The final selection of the State Information Commissioner, scheduled on 8 June, will be done by a three-member committee comprising of chief minister, opposition leader and one minister.
Adv Rodrigues has also drawn attention of the chief minister that Section 15(5) of the RTI Act requires that the State Information Commissioner should be a person of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance.
He has also opined that the RTI Act being a vital evolving law it was imperative that the State Information Commissioner be a person with a sound legal background.
He has also drawn CM’s attention to the recent order of the Supreme Court ruling on the need to select the Information Commissioners in a very transparent manner and not to allow it to become the “property of a political set-up”.
The Supreme Court has also expressed dismay, he points out, at retired bureaucrats and judges who espoused their cause in the “corridors of secretariat” for post-retirement jobs
As Adv Rodrigues informs, the 27 applicants include former Principal of Sanjay School Anyssia Viegas, former government servants N P Varde, K B Surjuse, Narayan Narvekar, Vishwanth Sawant, former Judge Sudin Sangodkar, teacher Sarvanand Sawant Desai and a Chartered Accountant Surendra Kerkar.
Former State Consumer Commission member Sandra Correia and a current member Dhananjay Jog also applied along with Suresh Raikar, R B Shirwaikar, Vijay Gaonkar and Vinita Halarnkar besides social activists John Filipe Pereira and Juino de Souza.
Six advocates who had thrown their hat in the ring are Julius Gomes, Sanjiv Sardesai, M S Joshi, Cynthia Pereira, Krutika Kande and Ghanashyam Poi.
Applications for the post had to be submitted to the Director of Information and incidentally the current Information Director Menino Peres, who is due to retire later this year, had himself also applied for the coveted post, states Adv Rodrigues.
last parrikar govt became hugely unpopular before it fell because of rampent castism and favouratism by parrkar for his caste members. All govt posts were going to members of saraswat brahmin community. It seems parrikar is doing the same mistake again. The process looks to be rigged in favour of nadkarni. Parrikar is digging his own grave by forgetting he was not made cm by his caste he was made cm by goans. But where is congress. Today aires has become leader of opposition.