Move to challenge administrative tribunal’s order in the High Court has put a big question mark on new appointments of state information commissioners in Maharashtra.In an interesting development Government of Maharashtra who had opposed the petition on appointments of State information commissioners in the High court stating that the petitioner had remedy of filing original application before the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) for the relief as prayed for in the writ petition, has now filed a writ petition ( 11623/2015) in high court stating MAT has no jurisdiction to try such cases.
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| The Bombay High Court |
Advocate John S Kharat from Ahmednagar had filed a writ petition ( No 4477 /2011) in Aurangabad bench of
Mumbai high court challenging arbitrary appointments of then State information
commissioners (SIC) P. W. Patil, M. H Shaha and D. B Deshpande. Then Assistant
Government Pleader (AGP) argued that the petitioner had remedy of filing
original application before the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal for the
relief as prayed for in the writ petition. Having confronted with this, learned
counsel for the petitioner withdrew the writ petition with liberty to the
petitioner to file original application before the MAT.
Accordingly Kharat filed original
application ( 469/2011) in Aurangabad bench of MAT.It was transferred to MAT Mumbai ( 823/2011). MAT on 16 April 2015 delivered its judgement
and passed severe strictures on procedure of SIC appointments. MAT had observed that
while scouting for the said posts, the High Powered Committee that recommends
candidate for posts of SIC to the Governor, has to make sure that the area of
resources is sufficiently large so as to attract and ensure the appointment of
the best talent for these important posts. However wider source from the fields
of law, science and technology etc. was apparently not taken into account with
the kind of seriousness by the committee
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| Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal |
Citing the recommendations of the
Supreme Court in the Namit Sharma (review) case, the Tribunal had also observed
that there was no material to show as to what the state of affairs was with regard
to the 68 candidates other than the 4 selected for posts of SIC’s. MAT had criticized
Government for not framing any rules for appointment of
SIC’s, and had also observed that there
was no advertisement as such. There was no exact date on which the process
commenced and there was no exact preform of application.
MAT had given following direction
to Government of Maharashtra
• There is an urgent need to make rules
consistent with the provisions of Right To Information Act, 2005 especially
Section 15 thereof for selections to the posts of Chief Information
Commissioner and Information Commissioners. It will be desirable to have the
rules in place much before the next selection is taken up for consideration by
the High Powered Committee under the Information act. The directions of the
Hon’ble Supreme Court in Namit Sharma’s case (reviews judgment) be carefully
perused and implemented.
• It will be within the
discretion of the Committee to fix the eligibility criteria for the said posts.
But there again, the provisions of the Information Act may be strictly followed
and it be ensured that the legislative mandate to have eminent persons from all
the various disciplines like Law, Science and Technology etc should be given
full scope to complete. The criteria should be duly publicised well in advance
before the selection process begins. Sufficiency and mode of publicity of the
said criteria will be within the discretion of the Committee
• The selection process must be
transparent and definitive without any scope for apprehension of partiality,
favouritism and such other vices. There must be a definitive time frame from
the commencement of the said process till its conclusion without submission of
the recommendations to His Excellency, the Governor. The details of the course
of action in this behalf are left to the discretion of the committee but the
following measures can be commended for consideration and effectuation: i)An
officer of senior rank must be appointed to perform the duties akin to what in
relation to several such committees is called Member Secretary…; The Committee
may make sure that a proper schedule is appointed for the selection process…the
duration of time between the date of commencement of distribution and the last
date of its receipt by the Officer may not be more than four to six weeks…
• The Chief Secretary, Government
of Maharashtra is requested to bring this judgment of the notice of the Hon’ble
Chairman and Hon’ble members of the Committee for information and action. The
Chief Secretary of the Government of Maharashtra may report compliance herewith
within eight weeks from today (16 April 2015).
However instead of complying with
the directions of the MAT, Government of Maharashtra has preferred writ in the High
Court challenging those.Meanwhile all the SIC's whose appointments were challenged are either retired ,resigned or removed from the services long back. Hence any order in this regard will not have any effect on then appointments. But complying with Supreme court or MAT order in further appointments may make some positive effect .
Now whether MAT has such jurisdiction or not will be
decided in the high court.But meanwhile there is big question mark on appointments of new information commissioners in Maharashtra.Regardless of pending the said writ, Government of Maharashtra may fill the vacant SIC posts with prior consent of the High Court , but will they do that?
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