Delhi Police chief BS Bassi, under fire for alleged mishandling of the JNU row, was on Friday dropped from the list for the post of Information Commissioner in Central Information Commission (CIC) by a selection panel-led by the Prime Minister which has cleared three names.
The decision to drop Bassi was taken amid mounting pressure from the Congress along with other Opposition parties and civil society activists citing alleged inaction of the Delhi Police as a mob had beaten up journalists, teachers and students on the Patiala House Courts complex during the hearing of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s case, official sources said.
Meeting the six-week deadline set by the Delhi High Court to fill vacancies in the watchdog, the panel met on Friday morning in which various names were discussed.
The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and leader of Congress in lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge at the Prime Minister’s South Block office. Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh also attended the meeting as a special invitee.
On his part, Bassi said he is not at all disappointed over the decision to drop his name from the list of contenders for the post of Information Commissioner in CIC.
Sources said Kharge was against Bassi’s candidature, a stand made already clear by some of his party leaders.
A 1977-batch IPS officer, Bassi, who is due to retire this month-end, was one of the applicants for the post of Information Commissioner. His name was shortlisted last November by a search committee headed by Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha.
There is a vacancy of three Information Commissioners against its total strength of 10. The names of candidates for all three vacancies were decided at Friday’s meeting, they said. Sources said the selection panel has sent its recommendation to President Pranab Mukherjee for his assent so that final orders for their appointments can be issued.
Besides Bassi, former Secretary of Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Shyamal K Sarkar, Anup K Pujari, the then Secretary of Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and former Information and Broadcasting Secretary Bimal Julka were also shortlisted then.
Bassi had applied for both the post of Information Commissioner and Central Information Commissioner against the Government’s order issued in September last. The Government had in December appointed former Defence Secretary RK Mathur as head of the transparency panel.
Mathur has tenure as CIC till he attains the age of 65 on November 25, 2018.
“I am happy and have no issues with that (the decision). I am not dissapointed,” the police chief said, adding that it won’t be a legitimate thing to comment further on the decision made by a selection panel led by the Prime Minister. It (the decision) doesn’t affect me,” BS Bassi said.
Opposing Bassi’s appointment for the post, Kharge is learnt to have cited a number of reasons including his “track record”.
Sources said that Delhi Congress Chief Ajay Maken had earlier communicated to Kharge the party’s reservations against Bassi’s name, faulting him on many counts including “failure to control law and order in Delhi” and also took umbrage to his role in the JNU row.
He had urged Kharge that as a representative of the opposition in the selection committee, the party must express its strong dissent to Bassi’s candidature for the post Information Commissioner.
The party said that Bassi in his tenure as Delhi Police Commissioner acted “completely contrary” to purpose of the RTI Act that envisages a confidence-building institution for the people of India.