TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The State Cabinet Wednesday reaffirmed Leena Mehendale as the Chief State Information Commissioner, but cancelled the selection of the two State Information Commissioners (SIC) Sandesh Prabhudessai and Stanley Coutinho.
It resolved to send the selection process itself to the law department for legal opinion.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said that the Law Department would be asked for its opinion on the process of appointment of the State Information Commissioner, after which the posts will be re-advertised, leading to a possible delay of at least another three months.
The chief minister said that as he had received some queries on the procedure followed while selecting the SICs, he had decided to place this before the cabinet and the cabinet in turn decided to ask for a legal opinion.
The process of appointment of state information commissioners itself is cancelled and the posts would be re-advertised after proper examination of all issues including the orders of the Supreme Court, he said.
Journalist Sandesh Prabhudessai and retired Defence Ministry Officer Stanley Coutinho had been selected for the post by panel made up of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Leader of Opposition Pratapsing Rane and Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza.
However, a city based lawyer had gone to court stating that only one post of SIC was advertised but two selections were made and that Prabhudessai was selected to the second post and was unqualified to hold the quasi-judicial post due to lack of legal qualifications and experience. The court had issued notices to the government and to Prabhudessai on Tuesday.
