Eight UP RTI information commissioners’ appointments were stalled after last week’s SC judgment mandating the presence of judicial members in benches of two at the information commissions. The panel of names for the UP commission was already finalised last month but will now be scrutinised by the governor in light of the SC ruling. At present, the UP Information Commission has only three commissioners including the Chief Information Commissioner. Information commissioner Gyan Prakash Maurya is a lawyer, but with less than 20 years of experience, while information commissioner Khadijatul Kubra’s background is in social work and mass media [Express India]
Former CJI Ranganath Mishra passes away in Orissa at the age of 86 after spending little more than three months admitted in a hospital for treatment of old-age related ailments. Mishra was chief justice of the Orissa high court in 1980, and CJI in 1990 [City Journal]
Bombay high court bars 36-year-old woman journalist from entering the court’s 150-years-celebration exhibition, for wearing a sleeveless top. Officials of the court attributed the restriction to a 7 September 2011 notification requiring visitors and litigants to enter court-premises wearing “modest dresses and in sober colour”. The exhibition was “open to the public” according to posters publicising it. “Even though I am a senior journalist, who has worked with mainstream newspapers and magazines for over 15 years, I had this unpleasant experience. It is advisable that the authorities put up a notice clearly mentioning their dress code at the entrances. Leaving it to the arbitrary interpretation of sundry personnel will inevitably lead to another situation like this,” said the barred journalist. [Mid-Day]
A 31 August notification makes being a high court judge an eligibility criteria for appointment as president of the CESTAT. The post of vice-president in the tribunal has been abolished. The retirement age for both the president and the members has been increased by three years [ITAT Online]
SEBI plans to open 30 regional offices to catch violation of investment schemes such as the CIS by corporates. This will take the regulator past the current lead of RBI with 19 offices countrywide. Currently SEBI has seven offices including the Mumbai headquarters. In August it opened offices in Jaipur and Bangalore. In March it said it planned to open offices in Chandigarh, Indore, Bangalore, Kochi, Patna, Bhubaneswar and Jaipur [Mint]