The report has brought out, what it calls a “concerning trend”. The information commissions, which are the last resort for the common man to complain against wrongful denial of information, are increasingly returning cases.
NEW DELHI: Planning to approach an information commission to appeal against wrongful denial of information under Right to Information (RTI) Act? If you are in West Bengal it will take you 43 years and in Kerala six-and-a-half years before your case is finalised.
A biennial study conducted by Satark Nagrik Sangathan and Centre for Equity Studies has revealed a grim picture of RTI Act implementation with waiting time at information commissions running in years and commissions in several states becoming non-functional owing to unfilled vacancies. About 169 RTI applications were filed with state information commissions and Central Information Commission (CIC) to gauge the pendency, number of cases returned by commissions, time taken by information commissioners in disposing of appeals and status of annual reports and penalties imposed for wrongful denial of information.
The study has found that if an RTI appeal were to be filed in West Bengal state information commission on November 1, 2017, it would be disposed of in 2060 – after 43 years. In Kerala, it would take six years six months and Odisha 5 years 3 months. The main reason for such a long waiting time is the reduced number of information commissioners that commissions are working with.
The report observes, “West Bengal is currently functioning with just two information commissioners. During the time period under review, for a period of nearly 12 months (November 2015 to July 2016 and April 2017 to July 2017), the commission did not hear any appeals as there was only one commissioner.”
Andhra Pradesh state information commission, which was hearing cases for both Andhra and Telangana states, became defunct in May 2017 with the retirement of the chief and another information commissioner. Andhra Pradesh information commission is yet to become functional. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Nagaland information commissions are functioning without a chief.
The report has brought out, what it calls a “concerning trend”. The information commissions, which are the last resort for the common man to complain against wrongful denial of information, are increasingly returning cases. The highest number of cases have been returned by CIC, followed by Gujarat, Assam and Uttarakhand.
