Over 80 Apply for CIC Role Even as DoPT Fails to Fill 8 IC Posts for More Than a Year
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has received 83 applications for the post of the Chief Information Commissioner, a Right to Information query, filed by transparency campaigner Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired), has revealed.
The current chief, Heeralal Samariya, is set to retire this month, leaving the post vacant. This comes amid eight vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 10 information commissioners (ICs) in the Central Information Commission (CIC).
“A total of 83 applications have been received in this Department in response to Advertisement no. 4/1/2025-IR Il dated 21.05.2025 related to appointment of Chief Information Commissioner in CIC with the extended last date of receipt of application i.e. 30.06.2025,” the DoPT’s response to the RTI said.
The DoPT had invited applications for the post in May 2025 with the last date of submission as June 20. This was later extended till Jun 30, 2025, the Hindustan Times had reported.
The information commission is currently staffed with just three officers – Samariya and ICs Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari.
The process for filling the posts of ICs had begun in August 2024 with the DoPT receiving 161 applications by October that year.
The Wire had reported in July that the process is yet to be completed.
The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information had noted last year that the CIC was functioning with eight vacancies even as it had almost 23,000 appeals or complaints pending, a number that the campaign noted was “steadily increasing”.
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