In a season of appointments to top bureacratic and administrative posts, the government is looking at the urgently filling up five top posts in the next four months. Finding successors to Wajahat Habibullah, chief information commissioner, and Prasad Rao, head, National Technical Research organisation (NTRO) handling cyber terrorism, is the government's immediate concern as both top bureaucrats retire at the end of this month.

Three other sensitive posts to be filled up by January are those of the chiefs of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the two intelligence agencies -- Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

The PMO is moving cautiously in making these appointments as the government wants to avoid any embarassment like it had to face over the recent central vigilance commissioner appointment. UPA had appointed former telecom secretary P J Thomas as the CVC despite stiff opposition from other political parties.

Insiders say Dr Manmohan Singh has quietly consulted three governors who were at the helm of affairs in the government until recently as he wanted their inputs on the best candidates for the top posts falling vacant in the sensitive organisations.

CIC SELECTION TRICKY: Habibullah, India's first CIC under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, had resigned in August last year to take charge as the first CIC of his homestate Jammu and Kashmir, but his resignation was kept in abeyance. He, however, cannot be given any extension as the RTI Act fixed the upper age limit for the CIC's post at 65 years. Habibullah turns 65 on September 30 and hence the government is under compulsion to find his successor.

The prime minister's worry is that the  leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj is also a member of the 3-member selection committee that includes himself and the law minister, and the opposition will have a field day if consensus eludes  the committee over choosing the new CIC. An informal consultation has already begun but those involved have been warned not to leak any names.

Sources say that the PM met NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi to explain the need of having a bureaucrat as the CIC and not someone from the civil society - as she and her advisors have been pressing for.

RETD HAND FOR NTRO: Both serving and retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) personnel are in the race to head NTRO. Former IB chief P C Haldar, who is now the government's interlocutor in talks with Assam's extremist outfit ULFA after his retirement in 2008, and N C Padhi, an espionage operational of IB who retired three years ago, are contenders for the post of head of this technology intelligence organisation.

Padhi would have become the IB chief but for then national security adviser M K Narayanan's antipathy. The latter has moved to the Kolkata Raj Bhawan and hence Padhi hopes for the post have gone up, though insiders say Narayanan still remains a top consultanat to the PM.

If the government prefers to put NTRO under a service police personnel with enough intelligence experience, there are three serious contenders. Topping the list is Sardar Nischal Sandhu, who is IB's special director, and competing with him is his immediate subordinate Ajit Lal.

Sandhu, a 1973 batch IPS officer of Bihar cadre, has vast experience of serving in IB and RAW and is known as a man of operations with grip on the ground realities in Jammu and Kashmir. He would have been the first head of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) but that was scuttled because it would clashed with with IB chief Rajiv Mathur's prospects as both have equal standing in the IPS cadre. R V Raju got the NIA post as he is two years junior to Mathur and thus does not destabilise the hierarchy balance.

Ajit Lal - of the Himachal Pradesh cadre and a batch junior to Sandhu - is due for retirement in September next year while Sandhu retires only in January 2012.

NEW IB CHIEF: There is, however, speculation that the PM would prefer a retired hand to handle NTRO and in that eventuality Sandhu, who is the second-in-command at the IB, is certain to be appointed as its new director next year as present incumbent Rajiv Mathur, a 1972 batch Bihar cadre IPS, retires in December.

CADRE MAN FOR RAW?: The Research and Analysis Wing of the cabinet secretariat is always headed by the IPS officers but there is excitement among the RAS (RAW Allied Service) officers that successor to their secretary K C Verma may come from their cadre for the first time. Verma is due for retirement in January.

Though the post becomes vacant only in three months from now, the lobbying has already begun.

Ranjit Mathur and his junior Sanjiv Tripathi, both belonging to RAS cadre, are vying for the top post.

The Prime Minister has been advised by the three governors, two of them former IB chiefs, to tread carefully in deciding the RAW boss as they point out how seven RAS cadre seniors had gone on a protest leave in  when IPS officer Avadhesh Mathur (1975) was shifted from IB to RAW as its special director general. The protest was over an "outsider" and that too a junior being thrust upon them while at least three of them, P M Hablikar, Sharad Kumar and Chakru Sinha, were seniors as they belonged to 1973 batch of RAS.

CBI WHO?: The post of the CBI chief will also be falling vacant around the same time as current head Ashwani Kumar is up for retirement in January next year. There are at least three contenders to occupy his chair from within the agency. They include Balwinder Singh, an Andhra cadre IPS who may lose the chance because of the charges of bias levelled on him recently by Gujarat IPS officer Geeta Johari embroiled in the Sohrabuddin killing probe. A P Singh, who is also with the CBI and belongs to Bihar cadre, is tipped as a frontrunner for the post.