Former West Bengal DGP Virendra appointed as state information commissioner

Former West Bengal DGP Virendra was on Wednesday appointed as the State Information Commissioner(SIC), state Parliamentary Affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said.

The meeting to select the new SIC was held at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's chamber at the state assembly. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP skipped the meeting citing violation of the "advertising guidelines for inviting applications".

Banerjee chaired the meeting.

"There were 15 applications for the post of which 10 were found valid. The CM proposed Virendra's name and we supported it. Virendra has been appointed as the new state information commissioner," Chattopadhyay said after the meeting.

Later speaking to reporters on the appointment of Virendra as the new State Information Commissioner, Adhikari said, "The meeting is illegal, it has met twice before. The Governor did not sign. I hope the Governor will not sign the appointment of Information Commissioner this time as well. All India level advertisement is required for this recruitment. This was not the case."

Talking about Adhikari skipping the meeting, Chattopadhyay said, "We got a letter from Suvendu Adhikari that he will not be present at the meeting. We do not see any valid reason for his absence. We had sent him the letter 15 days back. Then we resend another letter modifying the original letter 12 days ago. If he had any reservations he got enough time to raise it.