Former Law Secy Raj Kumar Goyal appointed CIC, oath tomorrow

Former bureaucrat Raj Kumar Goyal will take oath as the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) on Monday, with President Droupadi Murmu administering the oath.

Goyal was selected as the CIC this week by a panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, comprising Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. Rahul gave a dissent note. Goyal is a retired IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre of the 1990 batch.

He superannuated as Secretary, Department of Justice, under the Ministry of Law and Justice on August 31. Earlier, Goyal was Secretary (Border Management) in the Ministry of Home. Goyal will fill the CIC post that fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya’s term ended on September 13.

Eight Information Commissioners have also been finalised, namely former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, former IPS officer Swagat Das, former Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena, Member (Legal), Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, Sudha Rani Relangi, former Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi and journalists PR Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi.

With these appointments, the Central Information Commission will be in its full strength.

The CIC has 10 Information Commissioners with two already in place and eight new recommended.