Former Defence Secretary Radha Krishna Mathur has been appointed as Chief Information Commissioner (CIC).
He will have tenure of about three years, till he attains the age of 65 years.He succeeds Vijai Sharma as he has retired after completion of his tenure.
Conventionally, the senior-most Information Commissioner is chosen as CIC. However, Mr Mathur appointment was made away from the convention of appointing senior-most serving Information Commissioner as CIC.
President Pranab Mukherjee had approved the appointment R K Mathur as CIC after receiving proposal of Prime Minister led selection committee as per The Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The selection committee included Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Chairman), Leader of the Largest Opposition Party in Lok Sabha, Mallikaarjun Kharge and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
About R K Mathur
- R K Mathur is a retired IAS officer of Tripura cadre. He had served as Defence Secretary for two years
- Mr. Mathur, who did his graduation from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and post graduation from IIT, Delhi, has held various positions in his cadre state and at the Centre.
- He had been Secretary in Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Defence Production and Supplies.
At present, there are seven Information Commissioners — Basant Seth, Yashovardhan Azad, Sharat Sabharwal, Manjula Prasher, M A Khan Yusufi, Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu and Sudhir Bhargava.