Bill tabled: Proposal to raise RTI commissioner retirement age

Sent to law, information ministries for comments but faces resistance

PESHAWAR: To gratify commissioners of the provincial Right to Information Commission, an amendment has been proposed in the law which would extend their retirement limit to 67-years-of-age.

This, however, is two years more than the generally accepted age of superannuation of 65-years-of-age.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly secretariat has sent a draft of the amendment to the K-P Law Department and the Information Department for seeking their consent on the proposed changes to the K-P Right to Information Act 2013.

The draft bill had been submitted by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker Yaseen Khan Khalil as a private member bill.

It seeks to amend Sub-Section-5 of Section-24 of the Act which defines the age limit for the commissioners and the chief information commissioner of the commission.

At the moment, a commissioner or the chief information commissioner is appointed for a period of three years. Should they reach their age of retirement before their tenure is over, they have to relinquish the post.

While the proposed bill raises this age limit, but sources say that the K-P information department, establishment department and the law department, are all against the amendment.

Officials privy to the development say that the K-P establishment department had rejected the amendment with views that under the Article 179 of the constitution of Pakistan, a judge of the Supreme Court retires at the age of 65, hence the age limit for retirement of the commissioners cannot extend beyond this limit.

The official further said that the information department, which also serves as the administrative department of the RTI commission, has also rejected the amendment.

“The bill has been moved for the gratification of the commissioners who stand to benefit from it,” said an official who requested not to be named. Azmat Hanif Orakzai, the chief information commissioner of the commission, expressed his ignorance about the bill.

“We have not sent the bill,” he declared, adding that should they wish to have the law amended, he explained that they “send our amendment through the Information department to the law department.”

After listening to the particulars of the bill, he said that it would not benefit him.

Khalil, when asked why had the bill been moved, he responded that it had been done so at the request of an RTI commissioner who wishes to serve the commission but the upper-age limit is a hindrance.

“I moved the bill on the request of a commissioner a month back,” he said, adding that the commissioner had referred to another commission where the upper limit for retirement was 67-years-of-age.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2018.