Heeralal Samariya, a seasoned bureaucrat, was officially sworn in as the Chief Information Commissioner on Monday, succeeding Y K Sinha, whose term ended on October 3. The oath was administered by President Droupadi Murmu during a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Dignitaries in attendance included Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, among others. Samariya, a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer who previously served as the Labour and Employment Secretary, had assumed the role of Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission (CIC) on November 7, 2020.
This appointment follows a directive from the Supreme Court on October 30, urging both central and state governments to promptly fill the vacant positions within the CIC and state information commissions (SICs). The court emphasized that the 2005 Right to Information Act would lose its effectiveness without these appointments. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) was also tasked with gathering information from all states regarding information commissioners’ sanctioned positions, current vacancies, and the number of pending cases in the SICs. With Samariya’s appointment as Chief Information Commissioner, eight Information Commissioner positions remain vacant, while the CIC can have a maximum of 10 Information Commissioners. Both the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners can serve until they reach the age of 65.
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