New Delhi:
Sushma Singh will be the next Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of India and will succeed Deepak Sandhu, who is due to finish her term at the end of December this year.
The decision on appointing Ms Singh, a former IAS officer, as the next CIC was taken unanimously by a panel comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Law Minister Kapil Sibal.
Ms Singh will be the second woman to become the Chief Information Commissioner.
Being the senior-most Information Commissioner, Ms Singh was the unanimous choice for the post of CIC, sources said.
Ms Singh became Information Commissioner on September 23, 2009 in the Central Information Commission. She had retired from Indian Administrative Service (IAS) on May 31, 2009.
She is a former Secretary to the Government of India and belongs to the Jharkhand cadre. She had joined the IAS in 1972.
Ms Singh has served as Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
She has also served in the capacity of Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and also in the Ministry for the Development of the North Eastern Region (DONER).