Govt delay leads to longer list of vacant posts in statutory bodies

NEW DELHI: Chief election commissioner H S Brahma’s retirement on Saturday has added one more vacancy to the long list of unoccupied posts in constitutional and statutory bodies that the government needs to fill up. While Election Commission now has two posts of election commissioners in the three-member body vacant, the Central Vigilance Commission too has been operating without a regular central vigilance commissioner and one vigilance commissioner since September last year.
The situation is no different in Central Information Commission, where there is no central information commissioner since Rajiv Mathur completed his term on August 23 last year. In addition, posts of three information commissioners (the RTI Act provides for a CIC and a maximum of 10 information commissioners) are also unoccupied for almost a year. With RTI activists approaching the court against the delay which has led to a backlog of 37,000 cases in CIC, the Delhi HC recently decided to intervene and oversee filling up of top posts in the information panel.
Though PM Narendra Modi cleared Nasim Zaidi’s appointment as CEC before he embarked on his three-nation tour on April 9, there was no word on the EC’s post that has been vacant since V S Sampath retired on January 15. With Brahma now demitting office, another vacancy in the three-member body has been created.
According to government sources, the delay in appointment of CVC and VC is essentially on account of a petition filed in the Supreme Court by NGO ‘Centre for Integrity, Governance & Training in Vigilance Administration’, challenging the lack of transparency in the selection process and alleging that the choice was limited to only retired bureaucrats.
Though the government later put out an advertisement inviting applications for the top vigilance posts, the SC in December asked the government not to appoint CVC and VC without its go-ahead. The government has now gone back to the SC claiming that appointment of CVC and VC by the PM-led selection panel is its statutory right and needs no pre-selection scrutiny.
The posts of CVC and VC remain vacant till date, leaving acting CVC Rajiv as the sole member in the vigilance body.
Incidentally, the delay in filling up top posts in CIC and CVC comes despite the RTI Act and CVC Act covering the scenario of a vacancy in the post of leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, who in the normal course must be on the respective selection panels headed by the PM. Both the Acts allow the leader of the single largest opposition party in LS to take part in the selection where there is no recognized LoP.