MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 71 of 100

Correct — option (1), '(A), (B) and (D)'. Five statements are printed here, not four, and the answer is settled by the Right to Information Act, 2005 itself. Section 12 provides that the Chief Information Commissioner and the Information Commissioners are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee of three: the Prime Minister, who chairs it; the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha; and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. Those are exactly statements (A), (B) and (D). The Act adds a proviso worth knowing, that where no Leader of the Opposition has been recognised in the Lok Sabha, the leader of the single largest opposition group in that House is deemed to be the Leader of the Opposition for this purpose — a provision that mattered in the Lok Sabhas of 2014 and 2019, when no party held the tenth of the seats conventionally required for recognition. Statement (C), the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, and statement (E), the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, are not members of this committee, though each of them sits on other high selection committees, which is exactly why they are printed here. The parallel provision for the States is worth learning alongside: the State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioners are appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of a committee consisting of the Chief Minister as chairperson, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Chief Minister — the same three-fold pattern of head of government, leader of opposition and a nominated minister.

• (2)(A), (B), (C) and (E) — This option keeps the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, which are correct, but then adds the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha while dropping the nominated Union Cabinet Minister, who is the third actual member. Both additions are drawn from other committees — the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha sits on the selection committee for the National Human Rights Commission, and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha sits on the selection committee for the Lokpal — so a candidate who has learnt several such bodies without keeping their memberships apart is likely to be drawn here.
• (3)(A), (B), (C) and (D) — This is the closest of the wrong options: it names all three genuine members and then adds the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha as a fourth. The committee under section 12 of the Right to Information Act has three members and no more, so the addition alone defeats it. The error is a natural one, since a candidate who knows that the leader of the opposition is represented may assume that both Houses are; but the Act names only the Lok Sabha, and in most selection committees of this type it is the Lower House whose leader of the opposition is included.
• (4)(A), (B) and (E) — This option has the right number of members but the wrong third one, substituting the Speaker of the Lok Sabha for the Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. The Speaker's place on a selection committee is a real thing — it is the Lokpal selection committee that includes the Speaker — but not here. Getting the size of the committee right while getting a member wrong is the most instructive way to fail this question, because it shows that the structure has been remembered and the statute has not.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 creates a two-tier machinery of appeal and enforcement: the Central Information Commission for central public authorities and a State Information Commission in each State. The Central Information Commission consists of the Chief Information Commissioner and not more than ten Information Commissioners. All of them are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the three-member committee described in section 12 — the Prime Minister as chairperson, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. The commissioners are to be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance, and they may not be members of Parliament or of a State legislature, hold any other office of profit, be connected with any political party or carry on any business or profession. The Chief Information Commissioner can be removed by the President only on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity after a reference to and an inquiry by the Supreme Court, a protection modelled on that given to judges. The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 changed the tenure and salary provisions, moving them out of the Act and leaving them to be prescribed by the Central Government, a change criticised at the time as bearing on the Commission's independence.

Selection committees are among the most reliably examined items in Indian polity, because they are precisely defined, easy to set as a question and easy to confuse. The Commission's method here is transparent: print the three genuine members among five names, and add two names that belong to other selection committees rather than to none at all. The defence is to hold the committees as a comparative table rather than one at a time. The recurring pattern is a chair who is the head of government, the leader of the opposition in the lower house, and a third member who varies — a nominated cabinet minister for the Central Information Commission and for the Election Commission under the 2023 law, the Chief Justice of India or a judge nominated by him for the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, and a wider body including the Speaker and an eminent jurist for the Lokpal. Note also that this question prints five statements labelled in upper case, one of the eleven questions in this paper whose statement list is not four items long; an answer that argues about a statement (F) or overlooks statement (E) would be worthless.

• Under section 12 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee of the Prime Minister as chairperson, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister.
• Where no Leader of the Opposition is recognised in the Lok Sabha, the leader of the single largest opposition group in that House is deemed to be the Leader of the Opposition for this purpose.
• The corresponding State committee consists of the Chief Minister as chairperson, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Chief Minister, and the appointment is made by the Governor.
• The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is a member of the Lokpal selection committee, not of the Information Commission committee.
• The Chief Information Commissioner may be removed by the President only on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, after an inquiry by the Supreme Court on a reference made to it.

• Adding the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha to a committee in which only the Lok Sabha's is named
• Substituting the Speaker of the Lok Sabha for the nominated Union Cabinet Minister; the Speaker belongs to the Lokpal committee
• Forgetting the size of the committee — three members — which by itself disposes of any four-name option
• Overlooking that this question prints five statements, so an option must be checked against (A) to (E) and not against a habitual four

MPSC and other commissions ask selection-committee questions in two shapes: name the members of a stated committee, or identify which of several bodies a named person sits on. Both are answered from the same comparative table, so the table is worth building once and revising often — chairperson, the leader of the opposition and the variable third member, with the appointing authority noted alongside. Where a five-statement list is printed, as here, at least one name is usually borrowed from a neighbouring committee, so the question is testing discrimination between bodies rather than knowledge of any one of them.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The State Chief Information Commissioner is appointed by which authority ?

  • (a)The President of India
  • (b)The Governor of the State
  • (c)The Chief Minister of the State
  • (d)The Chief Information Commissioner of India

  Answer(b) The Governor of the State — the appointment is made on the recommendation of a committee consisting of the Chief Minister as chairperson, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Chief Minister. The President appoints the Chief Information Commissioner at the Centre.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is a member of the selection committee for which of the following ?

  • (a)The Chief Information Commissioner
  • (b)The Chairperson of the Lokpal
  • (c)The Comptroller and Auditor General of India
  • (d)The Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission

  Answer(b) The Chairperson of the Lokpal — the Lokpal selection committee includes the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of India or a judge nominated by him, and an eminent jurist. The Comptroller and Auditor General and the Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission are appointed by the President without any such statutory selection committee.