Bassi dropped: IAS officer Bimal Julka to be appointed as the new Chief Information Commissioner

IAS officer Bimal Julka to be the new Chief Information Commissioner, said news reports. Julka was previously the Information and Broadcasting (I and B) Secretary and retired from the post on 31 August 2015. Julka is an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1979 batch of the Madhya Pradesh cadre and worked as the financial advisor and special secretary with the Ministry of External Affairs, said a report in the Economic Times  This move comes after Delhi Commissioner of Police BS Bassi’s candidature was dropped from the list for the post of Information Commissioner, said news reports. Speaking to reporters, Bassi said that this move ‘‘doesn’t make a difference to him.’’ He also added that the Delhi Police are on the right track and are confident that they “will arrest the absconders soon”. The government had shortlisted Bassi for the post of Chief Information Commissioner, which had three vacancies. The committee that appoints the CIC is headed by PM Modi and also includes Finance Minister Arun Jaitely and leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge. [caption id=“attachment_2633694” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  IAS officer Bimal Julka. PIB[/caption] The move comes days after the attack on JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar, his lawyers and media-persons by ‘goon lawyers’ on Wednesday and Thursday. Bassi and his team’s inaction was widely criticised and the Centre  was slammed for promoting the Delhi Police Commissioner as the CIC. The opposition has also accused Bassi of favouring the BJP-led government to gain a position post retirement, said the report. RTI activist and former CIC Shailesh Gandhi wrote a letter to the Centre, objecting Bassi’s appointment as the next CIC, reported The Hindu. The letter says that appointment of Bassi would be a “a travesty of the process” and  “a sad day for democracy, and people will believe that the denigration of the two estates of governance had the approval of the government”, added the report. The Delhi CP is set to retire on 29 February 2016 and has been said to be in the running to be the CIC since November 2015.