Raj Kumar Goyal, Former Bureaucrat, Takes Oath as Chief Information Commissioner
President Murmu Administers Oath as CIC; Panel Recommends Eight New Information Commissioners to Strengthen Transparency Body
New Delhi, Dec 15: Former IAS officer Raj Kumar Goyal was on Monday sworn in as the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The ceremony was attended by Vice President C P Radhakrishnan, Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, and other dignitaries.
Goyal, a 1990-batch IAS officer from the Arunachal Pradesh,Goa,Mizoram,Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre, retired as Secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice on August 31. He has previously served as Secretary (Border Management) in the Home Ministry and held key administrative positions at both the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The post of CIC had remained vacant since Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13. Last week, a high-powered three member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommended Goyal’s appointment as CIC. The same panel also approved the names of eight new Information Commissioners, which will restore the Central Information Commission (CIC) to full strength for the first time in over nine years.
The recommended Information Commissioners include former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, ex-IPS officer Swagat Das, CSS officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena, ex-IFS officer Khushwant Singh Sethi, senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and Sudha Rani Relangi, Member (Legal) of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). Relangi has also served as Director of Prosecution at the CBI and Joint Secretary and Legislative Counsel at the Ministry of Law and Justice.
Currently, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari are the sitting Information Commissioners. Once the newly recommended CIC and eight Information Commissioners join, the transparency watchdog will be operating at full capacity, overseeing the Right to Information framework effectively.
The Modi led selection panel also included Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, highlighting the collaborative approach in appointments to the CIC.
