Cases Pending Before Information Commissions Mount as Posts Remain Vacant

New Delhi: With some State Information Commissions (SICs) being completely defunct and others working without a chief information commissioner or with a reduced strength of information commissions, the pendency of cases before the panels has shot up by nearly 59,000 in the past year, a comparative analysis of the latest report on their functioning has revealed.

The citizens' group Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) has produced report cards on the performance of the information commissions in India for the past many years. The idea behind the exercise has been to highlight their key role in providing information to people under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and the causes behind the shortcomings in the delivery of such information.

This year too, on the 17th anniversary of the enactment of the RTI Act, the group came out with a report that analysed the functioning of all 29 information commissions in terms of the number of appeals and complaints registered and disposed of by them, the number of pending cases, estimated waiting time for the disposal of an appeal/complaint filed in each commission, frequency of violations penalised by commissions and transparency in their working.

Writing the report, Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri noted that “seventeen years after the RTI Act was implemented, experience in India, also captured in various national assessments, suggests that the functioning of information commissions is a major bottleneck in the effective implementation of the RTI law. Large backlog of appeals and complaints in many commissions across the country have resulted in inordinate delays in disposal of cases, which render the law ineffective.”

While the report has pointed out the functioning of the 29 information commissions, The Wire looked into how their performance this year compared with the previous one to see if the government has taken any corrective actions.

Also Read: Over 26,500 RTI Appeals Pending with Information Commission: Centre

Two commissions remain completely defunct

The latest ‘Report Card’ for 2021-22 has pointed out that two of the information commissions – Jharkhand and Tripura – still remain completely defunct as no new commissioners have been appointed upon the incumbents demitting office. They were on this list last year too, along with Meghalaya – which has since moved out. “In the absence of functional commissions, information seekers have no reprieve under the RTI Act if they are unable to access information as per the provisions of the law,” the report said.

The report added that another four commissions are functioning without a chief information commissioner. These are the SICs of Manipur, Telangana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Last year too, Manipur and Telangana did not have a chief information commissioner and neither did Nagaland.

On the significance of this aspect, the report said: “The absence of a chief information commissioner has serious ramifications for the effective functioning of the ICs since the RTI Act envisages a critical role for the chief, including, superintendence, management and direction of the affairs of the information commission.”

Backlog up by nearly a lakh in three years

The report also noted that several information commissions have been functioning at reduced capacity. “The non-appointment of commissioners in the ICs in a timely manner leads to a large build-up of pending appeals and complaints,” it said.

This year, it said, “In the Central Information Commission, three posts of commissioners continue to be vacant even though the backlog of appeals/complaints currently stands at nearly 26,800 cases.”

To explain the impact these vacancies have on the functioning of the commissions, the report cited the example of Maharashtra SIC, which has been functioning with just five information commissioners, including the chief, for the past several months. It said:

“Due to the commission functioning at a severely reduced strength, the number of pending appeals/complaints has risen at an alarming rate. While as of March 31, 2019, close to 46,000 appeals and complaints were pending, the backlog as of May 2021 increased to nearly 75,000 and reached an alarming level of nearly one lakh by June 2022.”

Overall, the report said, the backlog of appeals/complaints has been steadily increasing in the commissions. Last year, there were 255,602 appeals pending before 26 information commissions. This year, as on June 30, the number of pending appeals and complaints had risen to 3,14,323. This is nearly a lakh more than the pendency on March 31, 2019, when this figure stood at 2,18,347 in the 26 information commissions.

Illustration: The Wire

In West Bengal an appeal on average would take over 24 years for disposal

Due to the large pendency of appeals and complaints, the report noted that as of today, 12 commissions have an estimated waiting time of one year or more to dispose of a matter. Last year, the report stated that 13 commissions would take over a year on average to dispose of a matter.

On the impact this has on cases in various SICs, it said: “Using the average monthly disposal rate and the pendency in commissions, the time it would take for an appeal/complaint to be disposed was computed. The assessment shows that West Bengal SIC would take an estimated 24 years and 3 months to dispose a matter.” Similarly, it noted that in Odisha and Maharashtra SICs, estimated time for disposal is now more than 5 years and in Bihar more than 2 years.”

Reluctance to impose penalties on erring PIOs remains

The report said penalties are rarely imposed on public information officers (PIOs), which is why information is not given out on time to the appellants. “The RTI Act empowers the ICs to impose penalties of up to Rs 25,000 on erring PIOs for violations of the RTI Act. The penalty clause is one of the key provisions in terms of giving the law its teeth and acting as a deterrent for PIOs against violating the law,” it said, adding that “the assessment found that ICs imposed penalty in an extremely small fraction of the cases in which penalty was imposable”.

This year, the report said, the analysis of penalties imposed by information commissions shows that the commissions did not impose penalties in 95% of the cases where penalties were potentially imposable. Last year too, the percentage of penalties imposed was exactly the same and this shows that neither the CIC nor the SICs have acted on the matter.

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