Gurugram: The Congress party’s failure to appoint a Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Haryana Legislative Assembly has landed the Nayab Singh Saini-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in an unusual fix. It is unable to make appointments to key statutory posts.
Absence of an LoP has stalled critical appointments, particularly to the Haryana State Information Commission, which faced a backlog of more than 7,000 cases pertaining to Right to Information (RTI) requests as of December 2024.
A maximum of 10 state information commissioners can be appointed to the Haryana State Information Commission, besides the chief information commissioner.
Appointments are made by the governor on the recommendation of a panel comprising the CM, LoP and a senior cabinet minister.
The government, it is learnt, is seeking legal advice from the advocate general on whether it can bypass the statutory requirement of having the LoP as a part of the panel that makes recommendations to the governor.
ThePrint reached Haryana government for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Panipat-based RTI activist P.P. Kapoor, who filed the RTI that led to the disclosure about the backlog of cases pending with the Haryana State Information Commission, told ThePrint Wednesday that the situation has only worsened since the beginning of this year since the commission only has three information commissioners.
Kapoor has received a response to his RTI query on 11 February.
At present, the commission has three information commissioners, namely Jagbir Singh, Pradeep Kumar Shekhawat and Kulbir Chhikara.
Haryana government had issued an advertisement for the role of one chief information commissioner and seven state information commissioners on 4 March. It received 345 applications, including from retired IAS, IPS, and HCS officers, as well as serving officials.
A search committee, chaired by Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi and comprising Additional Chief Secretaries Sudhir Rajpal and Dr Sumita Mishra, has completed the initial screening and is preparing to shortlist three candidates for each post.
The final selection, however, has to be done by the committee comprising the CM, a senior cabinet minister, and the LoP, as mandated by Section 15(3) of the RTI Act, 2005.
“The government seeking legal advice from the Advocate General to find ways to proceed with the appointments stalled due to the absence of the Leader of Opposition,” a source in government told ThePrint, adding that the government is also contemplating judicial remedies based on a Supreme Court ruling from January, in a similar case from Jharkhand.
In that instance, the Supreme Court had directed BJP, the largest opposition party in the state assembly, to appoint an LoP within two weeks, leading to Babulal Marandi’s appointment to the post in March.
As for Haryana Congress, its indecision stems from internal issues, with the party high command focusing on organisational restructuring, even six months after declaration of assembly elections results.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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