Over 500 people including sitting and former bureaucrats are among the applicants for four vacant posts of Information Commissioners (ICs) at the Central Information Commission.
The list of applicants given in an RTI response includes former textile secretary Zohra Chatterjee, former Secretary in the Department of Personnel Shyamal Kumar Sarkar, Vishwapati Trivedi, who is Shipping Secretary apart from lawyers, journalists, activists and people from all walks of life.
Lt Gen (retd) Anil Chait, Lt Gen (retd) N C Marwah also figure in the list which includes journalists V Venkatesan, Satya Prakash, activists Girish Mittal, Varun Arya among others.
In reply to Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra, the Department of Personnel and Training, nodal ministry for RTI affairs, said total of 553 applicants applied for the post of information commissioners in the CIC.
It said a search committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary has been constituted to shortlist names for placing before the Selection Committee chaired by the Prime Minister.
According to RTI Act, the CIC can have a Chief Information Commissioner and 10 ICs whereas there are only seven ICs. The transparency panel became headless in July after the retirement of then Chief Information Commissioner Rajiv Mathur as no new appointment was made in his place.
"As per section 12(3)of the RTI Act, Chief Information Commissioner/Information Commissioner is appointed by the President on recommendation of the Committee consisting of Prime Minister, who shall be the chairperson of the committee, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Union Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister," it said.
