Seniority trouble at information panel as four commissioners retire | Chennai News
Chennai: On the day when four out of the nine information commissioners retired, a controversy erupted after Atulya Misra, a former IAS officer, was named as in-charge chief of the commission ahead of the seniormost commissioner VPR Ilamparithi.Tamil Nadu Information Commission had nine members till Monday, when four of them — chief information commissioner Md Shakeel Akhter, and commissioners Thirumalaimuthu, P Thamaraikannan and R Priyakumar – attained superannuation, as their three-year term ended on Monday.Meanwhile, by an order dated June 12, the commission registrar V P Nagajothi placed retired IAS officer Atulya Misra at the top of the seniority list even though he was appointed information commissioner only in Feb 2026, just ahead of the model code of conduct coming into force. Ilamparithi, however, was appointed in June 2025.As Atulya Misra is on leave till June 28, the incharge chief information commissioner position has been given to a retired IPS officer Abhay Kumar Singh, who too was inducted in the commission only in Feb by the DMK govt.While sources said the state govt has initiated the process to appoint new information commissioners and a search committee will be formed soon, there is an unrest among the existing information commissioners over the allocated additional charges of CIC to Atulya Misra, even though he comes after Ilamparithi and M Natesan, whose tenure ends on Aug4 this year, in the seniority list.The information commission has more than 40,000 appeals and complaints pending before them for disposal.
