Four public interest litigation petitions have been filed in the High Court challenging the state government's decision to appoint M Ratan, S Prabhakar Reddy, C Madhukar Raj (all retired bureaucrats) and journalist P Vijay Babu as information commissioners.
The petitioners, who included social activists CJ Karira and D Rakesh Kumar and president of ITMD (Its Time to Make a Difference), a voluntary organisation, YP Ramakrishna, have requested the court to quash the government's order as the appointments were made in violation of the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and was in contravention of Articles 14, 16, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
They alleged that the appointments were made on political grounds and wanted the court to issue orders restricting the four commissioners from discharging their duties till completion of hearing of the petitions.
The petitioners further alleged that the appointments kicked up a controversy as the government failed to follow a transparent and accountable procedure.
They requested the court to issue a writ of quo warranto declaring the government's action as illegal and mala fide.
The matter will come up for hearing before a division bench comprising acting chief justice PC Ghose and justice Vilas V Afzulpurkar on Tuesday.
A selection committee comprising chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, deputy chief minister C Damodar Rajanarsimha and opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu, at its meeting on January 31, chose eight candidates for appointment as information commissioners.
Governor ESL Narasimhan, while approving the names of the above four, rejected those of Lam Tantiya Kumari, S Imtiyaz Ahmed, M Vijaya Nirmala and V Venkateswarlu.
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