Right to No: BJP can't stand new CIC nominee

UNPOPULAR WITH BJP: Ex-top cop Sreekumar could have been the nominee for the CIC's post

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New Delhi: The Central Information Commission is set to expand but there is a controversy brewing even on the list of possible appointees.

One man whose name has been mired in controversy at least as far as the BJP goes, is former Gujarat top cop, R B Sreekumar.

And the BJP leaders love to hate him.

So when Sreekumar's name was proposed by the central government, L K Advani made no bones about his opposition to the nomination.

"I had reservations and I mentioned them to the Prime Minister," said the BJP supremo. BJP has clearly not forgiven Sreekumar for speaking against Narendra Modi and his complicity in the Gujarat riots. So Modi's mentor and a part of the panel that choses the Information Commissioners, Advani was not just about to forgive and forget.

The former head of the intelligence wing of the Gujarat police, Sreekumar had sent a shudder across the establishment by filing an explosive affidavit in 2004.

In the 172-page affidavit that he had filed before the judicial commission probing the post-Godhra riots, he had listed instances of complicity of the police and politicians in the violence that rocked the state in 2002.

R B Sreekumar had became additional DGP (intelligence) only about 40 days after the riots started.

He was later unceremoniously shunted out from the intelligence department as the political leadership suspected his role in the leakage of the infamous Modi tapes to the media.

The union government is planning to increase the number of information commissioners.

Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah had only recently expressed the need to have more seats to flank his own.

"I am concerned and that is why I have asked for not one but two information commissioners," said Wajahat Habibullah.

The Central Information Commission has a duty to receive complaints from any person and enforce the Right to Information Act. It can even order an enquiry if it deems fit.

The prestigious commission includes one Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and not more than 10 Information Commissioners (IC) who will be appointed by the President of India.

The new commissioners are about to be nominated and appointed. The choices touted are the Secretary of department of Personnel and training, Satyanand Mishra and Chief Secretary of CBI, M L Sharma, among others.

Other nominees are Right to Information (RTI) activist Shailesh Gandhi and wife of former national security advisor J N Dixit.

While Gandhi is an IIT engineer alongside his RTI activism, the nomination of Annapurna Dixit has clearly puzzled many.