The government’s decision to appoint a person from another profession as professor will be resisted
PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information (KP RTI) Act of 2013 was passed with the objective to ensure the citizens had access to information in government departments, in order to ensure a healthy environment for the growth of democracy. The RTI body is a statutory organisation that acts independently under the leadership of the K-P Chief Information Commissioner and two other commissioners. The K-P RTI Act of 2013 stipulates that the Chief Information Commissioner shall be a retired senior government officer with a Basic Pay Scale (BPS) of 20 or above. The two information commissioners shall be appointed on the basis of profession. One must be an advocate of the High Court or the Supreme Court, and the other shall be a person from the academia with 15 or more years of experience. Given these criteria, two successive information commissioners that had been appointed by the K-P government previously were professors. However, this time around the K-P government has recommended a person from the information department for the position reserved for professors. This shows the neglect of academics in K-P as they are being overlooked even for positions reserved for them. The government’s decision has upset the fraternity and they would resist if a person from other profession is appointed to the position reserved for academics.
Rizwan Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, June 1st, 2019.
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