♦ Former law secretary Raj Kumar Goyal was appointed as the head of the Central Information Commission (CIC) on 13 Dece,ber 2025, while eight others were chosen as information commissioners. Goyal is a retired IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre of the 1990 batch. With this, the 11-member 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.

♦ Goyal succeeded Heeralal Samariya, the first Dalit chief of the CIC. With the exit of Samariya — who was appointed chief information commissioner on November 6, 2023 — on September 13 as he completed 65 years of age, the CIC became headless for the seventh time in 11 years.

♦ The new information commissioners include former Railway Board chairman Jaya Varma Sinha and Sudha Rani Relangi, who was a member of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. With their appointment, the panel will have three women members. Former social justice and empowerment secretary Surendra Singh Meena, former Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi, former IPS officer who worked in Ministry of Home Affairs and Intelligence Bureau Swagat Das, former IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, senior journalist P R Ramesh, and Ashutlosh Chaturvedi are the other new members in the CIC.

♦ Goyal was selected as the CIC by a panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, comprising Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.