President Droupadi Murmu administered the ‘Oath of Office’ to former bureaucrat Raj Kumar Goyal as Chief Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission at a ceremony held on Monday at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
With Goyal’s induction, the Central Information Commission is expected to regain full operational strength after a prolonged gap. His appointment was approved by a high-level committee, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi as members.
According to a Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions statement, “The terms and conditions of his appointment shall be regulated in accordance with the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and the Right to Information (Term of Office, Salaries, Allowances, and Other Terms and Conditions of Service of Chief Information Commission, Information Commissioners in the Central Information Commission, State Chief Information Commissioner, and State Information Commissioners in the State Information Commission) Rules, 2019.”
Goyal has over 30 years of experience in public service and has held significant portfolios in the justice and internal security sectors.
Senior bureaucrat Goyal belongs to the 1990 batch of the IAS and is from the AGMUT cadre (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories). He has held several key positions during his tenure of more than three decades in the Union government, gaining wide experience in legal, administrative, and internal security matters.
Goyal served as Secretary in the Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice before his superannuation. He had also held the post of Secretary (Border Management) in the Ministry of Home Affairs, where he dealt with issues related to border infrastructure and internal security coordination.
The post of CIC had remained vacant since the retirement of former CIC Heeralal Samariya in September this year.
The CIC is the apex body responsible for hearing appeals and complaints filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, playing a crucial role in promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. The Commission is headed by a CIC and can have up to ten ICs. At present, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari are serving as Information Commissioners.