A State Chief Information Commissioner and up to ten others: the commission at the top of Kerala's information law

Background

Kerala has taken two wings of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, T1 and T2, outside the reach of the Right to Information Act, using the power Section 24(4) gives a State. Three limits ride on that power: material about corruption and material about human rights violations still cannot be shut out. Human rights material may be released only with the approval of the State Information Commission, and it has to be given within forty-five days. Every notification of this kind must also be placed before the State Legislature. The Commission named in that proviso is itself a creature of the same Act: Section 15 obliges every State Government to set up a State Information Commission through a notification in the Official Gazette. It is made up of a State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioners whose number may not go past ten, and the Governor appoints them all on the recommendation of a three-member committee chaired by the Chief Minister. The committee's other two members are a Cabinet Minister the Chief Minister names and the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly. Members of the Commission must be persons of eminence in public life with experience in fields such as law, social service, management, journalism or governance, and none of them may be a legislator or hold any other office of profit. The State Chief Information Commissioner runs the Commission's affairs, and the State Government fixes its headquarters by notification.