Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner and Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (APFC and EO/AO) 2025 recruitment test. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, PENA-A-PTS); answer worked out by our faculty — UPSC has published no answer key for this sitting. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 25 August 2026.

Which of the following statements with reference to the RTI Act is/are correct ? 1. The Chief Information Commissioner and other Information Commissioners are appointed by the President of India on the recommendation of a committee headed by the Chief Justice of India. 2. While the Chief Information Commissioner is not eligible for reappointment after completion of the term of five years, other Information Commissioners are eligible for reappointment. Select the answer using the codes given below :

(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2

Answer

Why

Correct — D, (d) Neither 1 nor 2. Both statements misstate the Right to Information Act, 2005, and each does it in a different way.

Statement 1 — INCORRECT. The appointment is by the President, so that half is right; the committee is not. Section 12(3) provides that the Chief Information Commissioner and the Information Commissioners are appointed on the recommendation of a committee consisting of the PRIME MINISTER, who chairs it, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. An explanation to the section adds that where there is no recognised Leader of Opposition, the leader of the single largest opposition party in the House takes that place. The Chief Justice of India has no role in this appointment. The Chief Justice does sit on the selection committee for other offices — the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Lokpal chairperson and members are the familiar examples — and it is that resemblance the statement trades on.

Statement 2 — INCORRECT on both of its limbs. On tenure: the Act no longer fixes five years. The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 removed the fixed term from Section 13 and left the term to be prescribed by the Central Government, and the Rules made that year prescribe three years, or until the age of sixty-five, whichever is earlier. On reappointment: the statement has the position backwards. Neither the Chief Information Commissioner nor an Information Commissioner is eligible for reappointment to the same office. What the Act does allow is an Information Commissioner being appointed as CHIEF Information Commissioner — a different office, not a reappointment as Information Commissioner — with the total time served capped.

Neither statement survives, so the answer is Neither 1 nor 2.

A note on how to hold this in memory: before 2019 the Act pegged the Commissioners' term and status to the Election Commission's, and it is that older text that most guidebooks describe. Where a statement quotes a specific number of years for these offices, check whether the number is the pre-2019 one.

Why the others are wrong

(a)1 only — Selected by candidates who accept the collegium-style committee described in statement 1 because such committees are common for watchdog appointments. For this Commission, the chair is the Prime Minister and the third member is a Cabinet Minister he nominates, so the executive holds two of the three seats — a point of continuing debate about the Commission's independence, and the opposite of what a Chief Justice-headed committee would mean.
(b)2 only — This treats the reappointment sentence as correct. Its first half is right — the Chief Information Commissioner cannot be reappointed — and that is what makes the whole sentence read plausibly. The second half is not: Information Commissioners are equally barred from reappointment as Information Commissioners; their only route to a further term is elevation to Chief Information Commissioner. The five-year figure is also out of date after 2019.
(c)Both 1 and 2 — Requires both errors to be missed. It is the natural choice for a candidate who has learnt that the Commission was designed with the stature of the Election Commission and infers a judge-led appointment and a five-year term from that impression. Both features were features of the older text or of other bodies, not of this Act as it now stands.

Concept

The Central Information Commission is the appellate authority of the right-to-information system. Its Chief Information Commissioner and up to ten Information Commissioners are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a three-member committee chaired by the Prime Minister, with the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. Commissioners may not be Members of Parliament or of a State Legislature, may hold no other office of profit, and may not be connected with any political party or carry on business or practise a profession. They can be removed by the President only on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity after a reference to the Supreme Court, or on specified grounds such as insolvency or conviction for an offence involving moral turpitude. State Information Commissions are constituted on the same pattern, with the Chief Minister chairing the selection committee.

The Right to Information Act is core reading for an EPFO post, because every public authority — the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation included — is answerable under it through its Public Information Officers and its first appellate authority. Questions in this block tend to fasten on appointment, tenure and removal rather than on the disclosure provisions, because those are the parts with hard numbers and named office-holders. This item is a reminder that a statute's amendments matter as much as its original text.

There is a second lesson in this item beyond the two facts. A statute is not learnt once: the Right to Information Act was amended in 2019, and the amendment removed the very number that statement 2 quotes. Every guidebook written before that amendment describes the older position accurately, and a candidate who has read one is left confidently wrong. When preparing any statutory body, note the year of the latest amendment beside its name and check whether tenure, salary or appointment was among the things it touched — those three are what amendments most often change, and they are what examiners most often ask.

Key facts

Section 12(3): the CIC and Information Commissioners are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee of the Prime Minister (Chairperson), the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister.
Where there is no recognised Leader of Opposition, the leader of the single largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha takes that seat.
The Commission consists of the Chief Information Commissioner and not more than ten Information Commissioners.
The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 deleted the fixed five-year term from Section 13 and left the term to rules made by the Central Government.
The Rules of 2019 prescribe a term of three years, or until the age of sixty-five, whichever is earlier.
Neither the Chief Information Commissioner nor an Information Commissioner may be reappointed to the same office; an Information Commissioner may be appointed as Chief Information Commissioner, with total tenure capped.
Before the 2019 amendment the Act tied the Commissioners' salaries and service conditions to those of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners.
Removal is by the President on proved misbehaviour or incapacity after a reference to the Supreme Court, or on the other grounds listed in Section 14.

Study next

The route of an RTI application — Public Information Officer, first appeal, second appeal to the Commission, and the time limits at each stageSection 8 exemptions and the public-interest override in Section 8(2)The RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 — what it changed and the debate about the Commission's independenceState Information Commissions and the Chief Minister-chaired selection committeeSelection committees compared — CBI Director, Lokpal, Central Vigilance Commissioner, Chief Information Commissioner

Common traps

Importing the Chief Justice of India into an appointment where the statute does not name him.
Quoting the pre-2019 five-year term for the Information Commissioners.
Reading 'may be appointed as Chief Information Commissioner' as a right of reappointment.
Assuming that appointment by the President implies a judicial or bipartisan selection process.

Statutory-body questions in these papers are built from three facts — who appoints, for how long, and how removed — and the wrong statement is produced by swapping one of them with the corresponding fact from a neighbouring body. Prepare the RTI Act, the Lokpal Act and the CVC Act as a single comparative table and these items become mechanical.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q40

Which one of the following is not a constitutional body?

(a) The Election Commission of India
(b) The Finance Commission
(c) The Official Languages Commission
(d) The National Commission for Women

Answer(d) The National Commission for Women

The neighbouring distinction these appointment questions rest on — which bodies owe their existence to the Constitution and which to a statute, the Central Information Commission being of the second kind.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The committee that recommends the appointment of the Chief Information Commissioner under the Right to Information Act, 2005 is headed by which one among the following ?
- (a)The President of India
- (b)The Chief Justice of India
- (c)The Prime Minister
- (d)The Speaker of the Lok Sabha
Answer(c) The Prime Minister
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one among the following was an effect of the Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 ?
- (a)It abolished the Central Information Commission
- (b)It left the term of the Information Commissioners to be prescribed by the Central Government
- (c)It made the Chief Justice of India a member of the selection committee
- (d)It extended the Act to private companies
Answer(b) It left the term of the Information Commissioners to be prescribed by the Central Government

Why