Who is Raj Kumar Goyal? Former IAS set to take oath as new Chief Information Commissioner

Raj Kumar Goyal, a former IAS officer, will be sworn in as Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) on Monday, December 15, PTI reported, quoting officials. President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath of office and secrecy to Goyal. The post of CIC fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13. A three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recommended Goyal’s name.

Who is Raj Kumar Goyal?

Goyal is a 1990-batch (retired) Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. He superannuated as Secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice, on August 31. He also served as Secretary (Border Management) in the Home Ministry and held key posts both at the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Who recommends CIC?

A three-member panel comprising PM Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, held a closed-door meeting to decide the next CIC. Gandhi is learnt to have given a dissent note during the meeting, questioning the criterion adopted for the selection. The panel, headed by PM Modi, has also recommended the names of eight Information Commissioners (ICs) in the transparency watchdog Central Information Commission during its meeting held on Wednesday.

Central Information Commission

The commission will be in its full strength, after a gap of over nine years, once the newly selected CIC and ICs join. It is headed by a CIC and can have a maximum of 10 ICs. At present, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari have been working as the Information Commissioners.

Information Commissioners

Former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, former IPS Swagat Das, former Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena and ex-Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi have been recommended for appointment as Information Commissioners, officials said.

Senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and Sudha Rani Relangi, Member (Legal), Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) have also been selected by the panel for appointment as ICs, they said.