The ruling establishment has contempt for Right to Information Act (RTI), which is evident in its selection of Information Commissioners. Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy followed the footsteps of his predecessor YSR in making blatantly political appointments to the Constitutional posts.
A total of eight Information Commissioners have been appointed by the government on Tuesday, and almost all of them are directly or indirectly connected politically.
The selection also makes it clear that bureaucrats have come to regard RTI as a post-retirement bonanza.
The eight persons selected by a committee consisting of CM Kiran, Deputy CM Domodar Raja Narasimha and Opposition Leader Chandrababu Naidu are Imtiyaz Ahmad, a former TDP candidate presently in Congress Party, S Prabhakar Reddy, retired police officer, Madhukar Raj,former IFS officer, Andhra Prabha editor Vijay Babu, V Venkateswarlu of Nalgonda in the social service category, late Koneru Ranga Rao’s daughter Tantiya Kumari, N Vijaya Nirmala of Praja Rajyam and IPS officer M Ratan.
Imtiyaz Ahmad was the Telugu Desam Party candidate in 2009 polls for Pileru Assembly seat and contested against Congress Party’s Kiran Kumar Reddy himself. Later, Ahmad joined the Congress Par ty.
S Prabhakar Reddy is a retired police officer who served as Cyberabad Police Commissioner.The Group I officer who rose in the ranks to become IG retired on January 1, 2011.
The appointments smack of complete disregard for the sanctity of RTI, which is supposed to be a powerful weapon for the common man against the bureaucratic and political skulduggery.
These positions are Constitutional – which means that Commissioners can be appointed by the government but cannot be removed. They are on par with the Members of Election Commission of India and can summon even the Chief Secretary of the state.
Kiran Kumar Reddy won by a slender margin of 9,132 votes against TDP’s Imtiyaz Ahmad in the last elections. Minorities are a force in Pileru constituency, and following his elevation as CM, Kiran inductedAhmad into Congress Party.
Ahmad’s appointment as Information Commissioner will ensure that Kiran’s standing in his constituency is further strengthened. The former Cyberabad Police Commissioner S Prabhakar Reddy is said to enjoy close links with Kiran Kumar Reddy.
Presently, former principal secretary Jannat Hussian, a close confidante of late YSR, is the Chief Information Commissioner. RTI ACT provides for as many as nine Information Commissioners for each state. The Commissioners are supposed to be committed individuals with a social conscience and should hail from fields such as social service, law and journalism.
But the state governm
