The Supreme Court on Monday, November 17, heard a petition on the prolonged failure of the Union government and several states to appoint Information Commissioners.

Noting that vacancies were undermining the functioning of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, a bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed Himachal Pradesh to fill all vacant posts in its State Information Commission (SIC) within two months, and instructed Jharkhand to complete its long-pending appointment process within one month.

The Bench said it would hear the case again in the next few days.

Appearing for the petitioners, Anjali Bhardwaj, Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd.) and Amrita Johri, Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan told the court that the Central Information Commission (CIC) has been without a chief for more than two months and that eight of the ten sanctioned posts of Information Commissioners are vacant.

The CIC currently faces a backlog of nearly 30,000 cases. Bhushan informed the court that several SICs are also functioning with serious shortages.

These are the details shared by the petitioners on the pendency at the state level commissions:

Jharkhand: Defunct for more than five years; no longer registering new cases.
Himachal Pradesh: Defunct for more than four months.
Chhattisgarh: Operating with only one commissioner despite nearly 35,000 pending matters.
Maharashtra: Three posts vacant; backlog close to 1 lakh cases.
Tamil Nadu: Only seven commissioners sanctioned despite a backlog of around 41,000 cases.
Madhya Pradesh: Operating with four commissioners; around 20,000 matters pending.

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Since the last hearing on October 27, the Karnataka government has filled all vacancies in its commission, bringing it to the full sanctioned strength of 11 commissioners. Counsel for the Union of India told the court that a meeting of the selection committee would be held shortly and that appointments would be completed at the earliest.

The petitioners argued that governments were “completely undermining” citizens’ right to information by not making timely and transparent appointments, resulting in delays of over a year in the disposal of appeals and complaints. They also highlighted the need to follow the transparency standards mandated in the Supreme Court’s 2019 Anjali Bhardwaj judgment.

The petitioners were also represented by advocate Rahul Gupta.

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