President Draupadi Murmu on Monday administered the oath of office to senior bureaucrat Heeralal Samaria as the chief of the Central Information Commission (CIC). Heeralal Samaria is the first Dalit person in the country to be made the Chief Information Commissioner. Till now he was the Information Commissioner. Samaria has also worked as Secretary in the Ministry of Labor and Employment.
He was born in a remote and small village Pahadi in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan.
The CIC’s top post was lying vacant after YK Sinha’s term ended on October 3.
President Murmu administered the oath of office to Samairya at a function in the Rashtrapati Bhavan here, officials said.
Eight vacancies still exist
After Samariya’s appointment as the Chief Information Commissioner, there exists a vacancy of eight Information Commissioners. At present, there are two Information Commissioners on the Commission. The Commission is headed by the Chief Information Commissioner and can have a maximum of 10 Information Commissioners.
The appointment comes after the Supreme Court had on October 30 asked the Centre and the state governments to take steps to fill the post, saying otherwise the 2005 law on the Right to Information would become a “dead letter”.
Taking a serious note of vacancies in the CIC and state information commissions (SICs), a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra had also asked the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to collect information from all states on the aspects, including the sanctioned strength of information commissioners in the SICs, vacancies at present and the total number of pending cases there.
Who is Heeralal Samriya?
Heeralal Samaria is a 1985 batch IAS officer, a resident of the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. He was born on 14 September 1960 in a village named Pahadi. He obtained a BE (Civil) Honors degree from MNIT Jaipur Rajasthan University in the year 1982 and thereupon joined the Indian Administrative Service in Telangana cadre in 1985. His son Piyush Samaria is also an IAS officer.
Heeralal Samaria has been Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Labor and Employment. Apart from this, he has also been CMD of the Electricity Distribution Company Andhra Pradesh, CMD of Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation, and Secretary of the Irrigation Department.