New Delhi: The Central Information Commission (CIC) that has blazed a new trail in ensuring transparency in governance favours greater financial and administrative autonomy so that it is not dependent on government for its functioning. However, the apex body itself is not clamouring for amendment of the RTI Act to vest itself with more powers since it would like to test the limits of the existing law before doing that.

"What is really required is administrative and financial autonomy. At present, we are totally dependent upon the government both for administrative structure and for our finances," Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Wajahat Habibullah told reporters. He said Parliament should make a direct grant to the commission instead of routing fund allocation through the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

Stating that the commission being a quasi-judicial body cannot function like any other government department which has deputy secretaries and joint secretaries, he said, "what we need is "court masters and people with judicial background". Habibullah also made a case for freedom to recruit staff as opposed to the current practice of deputing personnels to the commission from the government.

"For this, first we will have to frame our own recruitment rules," he said. "We have placed a restructured kind of a proposal," he said, adding the Finance Ministry was favourably disposed towards it.

Source : PTI