Haryana panel clears ex-DGP Singal’s name for CIC’s post
CHANDIGARH: Headed by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the three-member statutory selection committee on Wednesday cleared the name of former director general of police (DGP) YP Singal as chief information commissioner (CIC) and former HCS officer Narender Yadav as state information commissioner (SIC).
The post of CIC had fallen vacant in May last year after retirement of Naresh Gulati, following which SIC Urvashi Gulati was given the officiating charge of CIC. She also retired on March 22 this year.
With the fresh appointments, the Haryana information commission now has full sanctioned strength of 10 SICs and one CIC.
Besides Khattar, the two other members of the statutory committee were public works minister Rao Narbir Singh and leader of Opposition Abhay Chautala.
Abhay, a three-time MLA of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), however, batted for former IAS officer Rajan Gupta and asked Khattar why was Gupta’s name not shortlisted by the screening committee.
Questioning the functioning of the three-member screening committee, Abhay alleged that the committee apparently had shortlisted only government’s favourite few. He however, did not oppose Singal’s name.
In all, 78 persons, including several retired bureaucrats, had applied for the post of CIC.
Out of these applicants, three had been shortlisted by a threemember committee comprising chief secretary DS Dhesi and two other IAS officers, namely P Raghavendra Rao and Sudhir Rajpal.
Earlier, Singal’s name had raised several eyebrows as he was indicted by the Prakash Singh committee.
The committee was formed by the Khattar government probed acts of omission and commission on the part of police and civil administration officials during the February Jat quota violence in 2016.