Former IAS Rajkumar Goyal likely to head Central Information Commission

Former law secretary and retired 1990 batch IAS officer Rajkumar Goyal is likely to be named the chief of Central Information Commission, the final appellate authority for the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Journalist P R Ramesh, former Railway Board chairman Jaya Verma Sinha, former social justice and empowerment secretary Surendra Singh Meena, former IPS officer Swagat Das, Ashutosh Chaturvedi, former Indian Forest Service Officer Khushwant Singh Sethi, Sudha Rani Relangi and Sanjeev Kumar Jindal are likely to be appointed as information commissioners, according to sources. The formal notification is likely to be issued on Saturday. Jindal is also a retired IAS who was an additional secretary in home ministry.

With these appointments, the government has filled all the nine vacancies, including that of the chief, in the commission. Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari are the only two information commissioners at CIC presently. With Ramalingam, there will be three women information commissioners at CIC -the highest ever representation of women on the panel.


The appointments had become a highly political issue with Leader of Opposition submitting a dissent note saying there wasn't ample representation of candidates belonging to SC, ST and OBC categories presented at the meeting of a three-member high-level committee, comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Gandhi, held on Wednesday.