Central Information Commission: Why Its Term Is No Longer Fixed by the RTI Act Itself

The Central Information Commission (CIC) is a statutory body under the Right to Information Act, 2005, the RTI Act's own final appellate authority for information requests to Union public authorities. This chapter's most important fact is not in the Act's original 2005 text at all: a 2019 Amendment changed how the CIC's own term of office is decided.

Composition and appointment (Section 12)

The Commission consists of a Chief Information Commissioner and up to ten Information Commissioners, appointed by the President on the recommendation of a three-member committee: the Prime Minister (Chairperson), the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. Members must 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 cannot be a sitting Member of Parliament or a state legislature, hold any other office of profit, or be connected with a political party or business.

The term of office: fixed by the Act in 2005, by rules since 2019

This is the chapter's real content. The original 2005 Act fixed the Chief Information Commissioner's and every Information Commissioner's term directly in Section 13: five years from entering office, or age 65, whichever is earlier, with no re-appointment, and their salaries and service conditions pegged to the Chief Election Commissioner's and an Election Commissioner's respectively.

The RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 removed that fixed structure from the Act itself. Section 13 (and the parallel Section 16 for State Information Commissions) now leaves the term, salary, allowances and other conditions of service to be prescribed by the Central Government through rules, rather than stated as a number in the Act. The Central Government exercised that new power the same year: the Right to Information Rules, 2019, notified on 24 October 2019, currently set the term at three years. The distinction worth holding precisely: the Act does not say "three years" anywhere in its own text; it says the Central Government decides, and three years is simply what the Government has currently decided. A future notification could change the number again without any fresh Act of Parliament, which is exactly why a question naming "five years" or "pegged to the Election Commissioner's salary" as the Act's current position is testing whether you know the 2019 Amendment happened, not just the 2005 Act.

Quick revision points

• Statutory, under the RTI Act, 2005. Composition: 1 Chief Information Commissioner + up to 10 Information Commissioners.
• Appointment committee (Section 12): PM (Chair), Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha), a Cabinet Minister nominated by the PM.
• Original 2005 position: 5-year term or age 65, salary pegged to the Election Commission. Not the current position.
• RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019: removed the Act's own fixed term and salary, handing both to Central Government rules instead.
• Right to Information Rules, 2019: currently set the term at 3 years, a rule the Government can change without amending the Act again.

Any question testing "how long does a Chief Information Commissioner serve" is really testing whether you know this is now a rule, not a fixed constitutional or statutory number, so answer with the mechanism first and the current figure second.