RTI: 3.14 lakh appeals, complaints pending in 26 information commissions as on June 30, 2022

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, December 29

Large backlogs, tardy disposal rate and lack of diversity in the composition of information commissions are some of the shortcomings highlighted on Thursday by a citizens’ group in the functioning of Information Commissions across India.

Prepared by ‘Satark Nagrik Sangathan’ (SNS), the ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India, 2021-22’ said nearly 60% information commissioners were retired government officials. “Merely 10% of all commissioners across India have been women and at present no information commission is headed by a woman,” it stated.

“Low disposal rates and vacancies in commissions are leading to a large backlog of cases and long waiting time for information seekers,” it said, adding, “the number of appeals and complaints pending on June 30, 2022 in the 26 information commissions, from which data was obtained, stood at 3.14 lakh.”

“Penalty was imposed in just 3% of the cases disposed of by Information Commissions,” said the report on the performance of the 29 information commissions set up under the RTI Act across India.

“The SIC (State Information Commission) of Tamil Nadu was found to have the worst performing IC (Information Commission) in terms of responsiveness under the RTI Act furnishing only 14% of the information sought,” it stated.

“Maharashtra SIC with an alarming backlog of nearly 1,00,000 (one lakh) had the highest number of appeals/complaints pending as of June 30, 2022. People are having to wait for months, even years, to get their case heard. The estimated waiting time for disposal of a new case in West Bengal SIC was found to be 24 years & 3 months,” said the report released by Anjali Bhardwaj on Thursday.

“In Odisha and Maharashtra SICs, estimated time for disposal was more than 5 years. The assessment shows that 12 commissions would take one year or more to dispose of a matter,” it said.

“Most of the information- including regarding the number of appeals and complaints dealt with by the IC, details of penalty imposed & compensation awarded- was denied (by Tamil Nadu IC) stating that the information could be provided only “after getting the approval of the State Legislative Assembly”, though no such provisions exist in the RTI Act,” it said.

According to the report, “Large number of cases being returned by ICs- Several ICs were found to be returning a very large number of cases without passing any orders. The CIC, UP SIC and Andhra Pradesh SIC returned around 40% of the appeals/complaints received by them,” it stated.

“Several commissions have an extremely low rate of disposal per commissioner. For instance, the SIC of West Bengal had an annual average disposal rate of 222 cases per commissioner — each commissioner effectively disposing of less than one case a day — even though more than 10,000 cases were pending. Of all the 29 information commissions, only the CIC has adopted a norm regarding the number of appeals/complaints to be disposed of by each commissioner in one year,” the report stated.

“Many commissions are functioning at reduced capacity and without a Chief due to governments not filling vacancies in a timely manner. SICs of Jharkhand and Tripura are completely defunct as no new commissioners have been appointed upon the incumbent’s demitting office,” the report said.