Ex-def secy RK Mathur takes oath as new CIC

Former Defence Secretary RK Mathur was on Monday sworn in as the eighth Chief Information Commissioner by President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

62-year-old Mathur, a retired IAS officer of Tripura cadre, completed his two-year fixed tenure as Defence Secretary in May last year.

As the CIC, he will have a tenure of about three years, till he attains the age of 65 years.

The oath ceremony could not be held earlier as the President was on a southern sojourn for 14 days and returned on December 31. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee, which has FM Arun Jaitley and leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, as its members, had last year on December 16 selected Mathur as the new CIC.

The Central Information Commission has been headless twice since the BJP government came to power in 2014. Earlier, it was without a chief for nearly 10 months after the completion of the tenure of the then Chief Information Commissioner, Rajiv Mathur, in August, 2014.