Gurugram: The Congress party’s failure in appointing a leader of the opposition (LOP) in the Haryana Legislative Assembly has brought Naib Singh Saini-Nedi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in unusual improvement. It is unable to appoint major statutory positions.
The absence of a LOP has prevented important appointments especially for the Haryana State Information Commission, which by December 2024 faced a backlog of more than 7,000 cases related to the information (RTI) requests.
Apart from the Chief Information Commissioner, a maximum of 10 State Information Commissioners can be appointed in Haryana State Information Commission.
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Appointments are made by the Governor on the recommendation of a panel, including CM, LOP and a senior cabinet minister.
The government, this, is learned, seeking legal advice from the advocate general whether it can ignore Lopa as a part of the panel that may recommend to the Governor.
Theprint reached the Haryana government for comment, but did not receive any response until the time of publication. This report will then be updated if and when the response is obtained.
Panipat-based RTI activist PP Kapoor, who filed RTI, revealed the backlog of pending cases with the Haryana State Information Commission, told ThePrint on Wednesday that the situation has deteriorated since the beginning of this year as the Commission has only three information commissioners.
Kapoor received his RTI Query’s reply on 11 February.
Currently, the Commission has three information commissioners, ie Jagbir Singh, Pradeep Kumar Shekhawat and Kulbir Chhikra.
On March 4, the Haryana government released an advertisement for the role of a Chief Information Commissioner and seven State Information Commissioners. It received 345 applications, including retired IAS, IPS, and HCS officers as well as service to officers.
A search committee headed by Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi and Additional Chief Secretary Sudhir Rajpal and Dr. Sumita Mishra is involved, completing the initial screening and is preparing to shortlist three candidates for each post.
However, the final selection is to be made by the committee, including CM, a senior cabinet minister and LOP, as mandatory by Section 15 (3) of the RTI Act, 2005.
A government source said, “A source of the government said,” Due to a government source, a source in the government said, “A source of the government said,” A source of the government said, “To seek legal advice from the advocate general to find ways to move forward with the appointments due to the absence of the Leader of the Opposition, to seek legal advice from the advocate general,” the government said that the government has also considered judicial remedies on the basis of the Supreme Court’s decision from January.
In that example, the Supreme Court had directed the largest opposition party, BJP to appoint an LOP within two weeks in the state assembly, which led to the appointment of Babulal Marandi for the post in March.
For the Haryana Congress, its indifference stems from internal issues, focusing on organizational restructuring with high command of the party, even six months after the announcement of assembly election results.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)