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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | What’s Ailing RTI? by Shonali Ghosal

What’s Ailing RTI? by Shonali Ghosal

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published Published on Dec 18, 2011   modified Modified on Dec 18, 2011

THE MERE suggestion of any amendment to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, sends civil society into a tizzy. Perhaps this level of anxiety is necessary to protect the common man’s most important tool to hold the government accountable. But what if the RTI is dying, not because of government intervention but negligence?

The pendency of complaints and appeals in several states is on the rise, while the number of information commissioners in individual states is dropping. Andhra Pradesh, for example, had four in November 2010 against a maximum sanctioned strength of 11 but now has just a Chief Information Commissioner. This is despite several letters being dispatched by the commission to the state asking for immediate appointments. The total number of pending complaints and appeals, which was around 4,000 at the end of 2010, doubled to 8,296 on 31 October.

“The workload is too much for one person. We need at least five commissioners,” says CIC Jannat Hussain. But there’s still hope for RTI in the state with the Andhra Pradesh High Court recently ordering the state government to appoint commissioners within four weeks (the onus is on the state government to appoint State Information Commissioners).

Each state is allowed a maximum of 11 information commissioners including the chief, irrespective of factors like the number of complaints they receive. This in turn leads to higher pendency of cases in some, which threaten the very core of the RTI: the guarantee to receive information in 30 days. “They should not become like regular courts. Courts have failed because of pendency,” says VV Rao, convener of Social Audit Council on Information Right.

In Gujarat, where there were three commissioners till July, only one is left. Its website shows a total pendency of 7,668 cases until May. When TEHELKA asked for the latest figures, the commission refused, suggesting filing of an RTI. Ironically, the Tamil Nadu Information Commission, when contacted, also asked for an RTI application to give the information, which is readily available with most commissions. So much for proactive disclosure.

Rajasthan is worse off, with no chief since mid-April, when the last incumbent retired. It was only on 5 September that the sole Information Commissioner, T Srinivasan, was made the chief. “As per rules, there can be no hearing unless there is an SCIC,” says RP John, private secretary at the commission. For the four months that the commission came to a halt, they could only collect complaints. No disposals could be made, despite there being one information commissioner. “Because of that, our pendency is more than 8,200 but that’s obvious when the inflow outweighs the outflow,” says secretary JK Sachdeva.

PENDENCY IS a problem even in states such as Maharashtra, which has five information commissioners (nine until earlier this year). But the volume of complaints and appeals is so large that the backlog, which was 15,812 in August 2010, shot up to 19,691 by June. But it’s not just the state government at fault, points out Punebased RTI activist Vihar Durve. “If Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi can dispose of 500 appeals a month, why are others disposing of just 150-200?” he asks.

The question is, how does one determine how many cases each information commissioner should be tackling? Jharkhand, which had a pendency of just 372 last year has now run up a total of 1,257 pending cases this year.

True, the Jharkhand Information Commission has just one commissioner at the moment but how does one know if he’s doing enough? What’s a good number? “A minimum of 5,000 per commissioner, per year,” says Gandhi.

Even at the Centre, there has been a threefold increase in pending cases from 6,820 as on 1 April 2008 to over 20,000 today despite Central Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra having written letters to the prime minister’s office asking for the vacancies to be filled up. “This (pendency) is only the backdoor way of killing the RTI. To frustrate the appellants and complainants till they give up,” says Hyderabad-based RTI activist CJ Karira. Of course, it may not be by design but by accident that RTI is choking to death.


Tehelka Magazine, Vol 8, Issue 51, 24 December, 2011, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ne241211Ailing.asp


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