Former Law Secretary Raj Kumar Goyal has been appointed as the Chief of the Central Information Commission while eight others, most of them former civil servants, were chosen as Information Commissioners.
With this, the 11-member Central Information Commission (CIC) acquired full strength for the first time in the past seven years. The central transparency panel has been headless since September and has been working with just two Information Commissioners Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari.
The Central Information Commission will also have eight new information commissioners, including two women – former Railway Board chairperson Jaya Varma Sinha and legal expert and Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board member Sudha Rani Relangi.
Goyal will take oath as the Chief Information Commissioner on Monday 11 am. President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath to Goyal, who will later administer oath to the eight Information Commissioner
Who is Raj Kumar Goyal?
Raj Kumar Goyal is former IAS of 1990 batch Jammu & Kashmir cadre. He retired as law secretary in August 2025. He had also served as secretary border management at centre as well a special secretary in external affairs ministry.
A native of Uttar Pradesh, Raj Kumar Goyal, is a graduate in electronics and communication from Roorkee University.
How his name was cleared?
Goyals name was cleared after a meeting of the Selection Committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi as members. Rahul Gandhi, who is leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, differed from the decision and submitted a dissent note claiming that there is no proper representation of ‘Bahujans', a claim rebutted by the government
Goyal will be succeeding Heeralal Samariya, the first Dalit chief of CIC. With the exit of Samariya, who was appointed Chief Information Commissioner on November 6, 2023 and retired on September 13 as he completed 65 years of age, the CIC became headless headless for the seventh time in 11 years with the government failing to find a successor.
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