Short-Staffed, Defunct and Headless: How Information Commissions Performed in 2024-25

New Delhi: It would take the State Information Commission (SIC) of Telangana 29 years and 2 months to dispose of a complaint filed in 2025, if it were to get to all complaints in the order in which they were filed, a report on the performance of Information Commissions (ICs) in India shows.

According to the findings of the ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India, 2024-25’ by Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), the estimated waiting time for disposing of an appeal at 18 of the 29 ICs is over a year, with the performance of Tripura (23 years), Chhattisgarh (11 years), Madhya Pradesh (7 years) and Punjab (7 years), in addition to Telangana, being particularly worse. 

Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) is a citizens’ group that promotes transparency and accountability in government functioning. Its work centres on the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, which completes 20 years on October 12.

“Inordinate delays by ICs in disposing appeals/complaints violate the basic objective of the RTI Act. Long delays in the commissions render the law ineffective for people, especially for those living at the margins, who are most dependent on government services (and therefore need information the most),” the report underlined.

It also found that six of the 29 ICs – Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh – were defunct for varying periods between July 1, 2024 and October 7, 2025. Of these, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh ICs continue to be defunct as of October 7.

Additionally, three commissions, including the the Central Information Commission (CIC), are functioning without a Chief Information Commissioner, with more than 4 lakh cases pending across various ICs in the country.

Vacancies

The increased waiting time for resolution of appeals and the high number of pending cases can be attributed to vacancies at various ICs. Under the RTI Act, ICs are supposed to function with up to 10 information commissions along with one chief. 

However, the CIC has been functioning with only two commissioners since September 13, 2025. The posts of the chief information commissioners and eight commissioners are vacant. 

The Wire has previously reported on the hiring notifications issued by the government to fill these vacancies in 2024 and 2025, but no appointments have been made till date. 

The report noted that this is the seventh instance of the CIC being headless in the last 11 years. “In every single instance, the post of the CIC fell vacant on account of routine retirements – either attaining the age of 65 or upon completion of stipulated tenure. Therefore, in each case the date of demitting office was known since the time they were appointed and despite that, the government failed to make appointments in a timely manner,” the report said.

The SIC of Chhattisgarh has been functioning without a chief for more than two years while that of Andhra Pradesh has been without a head since September 25, 2025.

The report also noted that despite the increasing backlog of cases. Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra were functioning at a reduced capacity.

Number of appeals and disposal rate at ICs

According to the report, 2,41,751 complaints and appeals were filed across 27 ICs between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025, of which 1,82,165 cases were disposed of.

The SIC of Jharkhand was defunct throughout the period under consideration, and therefore no appeals/complaints were disposed of by the SIC. 

Rajasthan SIC denied information on the number of appeals and complaints registered and disposed of by the commission. It claimed that providing this information would be a breach of privilege of the legislative assembly as the annual report has not yet been tabled in the state assembly.

The report also noted that the practice of returning a large number of appeals and complaints without passing any orders was “problematic” as a large number of applicants filed RTI queries regarding basic entitlements owed to them by the state. 

“National assessments have shown that a large number of RTI applications emanate from urban poor and from rural households seeking information about their basic entitlements. In this context, the practice being followed by the CIC and some SICs, of returning a very large number of appeals and complaints without passing any orders, becomes extremely problematic,” the report said.

The practice created the impression that ICs were seeking to reduce case backlogs by frustrating information seekers and hoping that they “would feel discouraged and…give up if their appeal/complaint is returned”, the report said.

“In many cases appeals/complaints were returned without even being registered by Information Commissions and often on flimsy grounds like the pagination being incorrect. As many as 40% of complaints/appeals were returned by the CIC,” said transparency activist and founding member of SNS, Anjali Bharadwaj.

The report urged commissions to “facilitate and assist people in the process of registering their appeals/complaints, rather than summarily returning them.”

Reluctance to impose penalties on erring officers

The RTI Act entitles ICs to impose penalties of upto Rs 25,000 on Public information Officers (PIOs) found in violation of the Act. The report highlighted reluctance on the part of ICs to impose penalties or ask for justification from officers for not complying with the law. 

The report found that a total of 13,657 show cause notices were issued to PIOs by 17 commissions that provided relevant information for this assessment.

Of these, Gujarati led the pack with the maximum number of penalties imposed at 10,767, followed by Haryana (1,765) and Tamil Nadu (372). However, the CIC and the SICs of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh claimed that they did not maintain a record of this information. 

The SICs of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and West Bengal did not provide any reply or denied the information, the report said.

The report noted that penalties were imposed in 1,252 cases across 23 commissions. Of these, maximum penalties were imposed in Chhattisgarh (431), followed by Karnataka (192) and Bihar (186).

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