Retired IG of police Christopher Nelson, former AIADMK MP Dr V. Saroja, former district S F Akbar, former public prosecutor P. Tamilselvan and former public service commission member Ms B. Neelambikai, were on Saturday appointed as state information commissioners.
They will hold office for a term of five years or until attaining age of 65 years, according to state government gazette notification.
It said these appointments were subject to the outcome of the special leave petitions filed in the Supreme Court by C. Manoharan and A. Arumuga Nainar challenging the cancellation of their appointment as information commissioners during the previous DMK regime.
The state information commission is now headed by chief information commissioner K.S. Sripathi and has only T. Srinivasan as an information commissioner.
The commission has sanctioned strength of one chief information commissioner and six information commissioners.
The vacancies in the commission led to piling up of appeals against delays and rejection of information by the various government offices sought under the Right to Information Act. The Saturday order appointing five new information commissioners is expected to clear the backlog.