There cannot be a worse mockery of law. Sources in the Administration said that the officer, who had been opposing the appointment of a Central Principal Information Officer (CPIO) at the office of the Administrator, has himself been appointed as the new CPIO.

On Friday, Bhupinder Singh was appointed as the CPIO in the office of the UT Administrator and Secretary to Punjab Governor M P Singh was appointed as the Appellate Authority.

On May 15, Central Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah had directed the Administration to designate an officer as CPIO in the office of UT Administrator.

While adjudicating the complaint by social activist Hemant Goswami on the issue of non-compliance of the Right to Information Act (RTI) by the UT Administrator, Habibullah directed the Administrator to have a CPIO in his office, who shall maintain the record as mandated under Section 4 (1) (b).

Goswami had filed a complaint in January 2008 under Section 18 of the RTI with the Central Information Commissioner (CIC) pointing out that even after two years of the Act coming into force, the UT Administrator had not published the necessary details mandated under the RTI Act. Besides, no Public Information Officer had been appointed.

Bhupinder Singh, who was representing the Chandigarh Administration, while contesting the case in the office of CIC repeatedly contended that “there was no necessity for the appointment of a CPIO in the office of UT Administrator, because no information or record is maintained in the Administrator’s office.”

In his letter to the CIC on February 6, 2008, Bhupinder Singh has specifically mentioned, “It is intimated that the Administration is headed by the Administrator. The Governor of Punjab has been appointed as the Administrator of Chandigarh. No separate office has been set up by the Administration with the nomenclature of the Administrator’s office.”