Kolkata, March 19 Controversies have started surfacing over the appointment of two new members of the West Bengal Information Commission the official announcement of which was made on Wednesday evening.
One of the two new members is Sanchita Kumar, the wife of the current Director General of West Bengal Police Rajeev Kumar.
A retired Income Tax officer, she had taken voluntary retirement from her service recently.
The second new appointment, whose name was announced on Wednesday, was that of Mriganko Mahato, the former Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member from Purulia constituency .
The current State Information Commissioner is the former Director General of West Bengal Police, Virendra.
The appointments of the two new members of the commission was finalised at a meeting of the appointing committee which was attended by two members of the committee, namely Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the State Parliamentary Affairs minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.
The third member of the committee and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, boycotted the meeting in protest condemning the role of the state government in the alleged tampering of evidence during the investigation on the R.G. Kar rape and murder case in August last year.
LoP Adhikari communicated about his absence at the meeting through a letter to the Secretary to the State Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department, expressing his unwillingness to attend the meeting.
In his letter, LoP Adhikari has also said that he will not be attending the meeting just to avoid interaction with the Chief Minister as a mark of protest against evidence tampering by a section of state government functionaries in the R.G. Kar rape and murder case.
The Opposition BJP has already questioned how Mahato, as a former Lok Sabha member, can be included as a member of such an Information Commission.
The Trinamool Congress has claimed that since being a former legislator, Mahato does not have any direct links with the ruling party, there was no ethical hurdle in his appointment.
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