Indian
Express: New Delhi: Monday, 27 April 2015.
Files already
piled up on the Chief Information Commissioner’s desk could take up to 2020 to
clear. Delay in appointing the CIC hurts the objectives of both the RTI Act and
the PM’s pledge of good governance.
The RTI Act,
2005 provided for a Central Information Commission and State Information
Commissions to deal with appeals and complaints against public authorities.
Section 12 of the RTI Act states, “The Central Information Commission shall
consist of the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), and such number of Central
Information Commissioners, not exceeding 10, as may be deemed necessary.”
While in some
cases the Central Information Commission has taken a restrained approach
towards government machinery, particularly high offices of the country, it has
generally been pro-transparency.
The post of
CIC has been vacant since August 22, 2014, when the tenure of the sixth CIC,
Rajiv Mathur, came to an end. At that time, 7,650 complaints and appeals were
pending with the CIC’s office. On April 26, 2015, as this is being written, the
pendency has nearly doubled to 14,152 cases.
A broad
analysis of data shows Information Commissioners are able to dispose of 200-300
cases per month on average. At this rate, if a new CIC were to start work from
May 1, and dispose of 250 pending cases per month, he or she will take at least
56 months, or until January 2020, just to clear this backlog not counting all
the new cases that will land on the CIC’s desk through these four-and-a-half
years.
Some more
stats: When Satyananda Mishra retired as CIC on September 4, 2013, the total
pendency before the Commission was 21,119. As on April 26, it was 37,987.
Assuming each of the seven Information Commissioners dispose of 250 cases a
month, they would take more than 21 months until January 2017 to clear them
all.
The fact that
the appointment of the CIC has been delayed means that in effect, there is no
hope of appeals or complaints being redressed if they relate to any of the
high-profile departments dealt with by the CIC that is, the President’s and
V-P’s Secretariats, PMO, Parliament, Supreme Court and HCs, Election
Commission, Cabinet Secretariat, CAG, UPSC, Staff Selection Commission, CBI,
CVC, DoPT and several important central ministries among many other high
offices.
The RTI Act
has been a revolutionary instrument of empowerment. The kind of transparency
India has seen in public life in the last 10 years was unthinkable earlier. It
has given every ordinary Indian with Rs 10 to spare the courage to seek any
information from a government office. For BPL applicants, the information comes
for free.
Quick
disposal of cases was the hallmark of the RTI Act. Several requests are related
to daily life struggles of ordinary citizens, and they lose hope if the matter
stretches. The mounting pendency at the Central Information Commission is
reminiscent of the Consumer Protection Act (COPRA). For a few years after that
law came into force in 1986, disposals were quick, and there were provisions to
ensure that no hearing should be delayed beyond a certain time. But gradually,
the Consumer Forums and Commissions were flooded with complaints, and the Act
became ineffective.
Up until the
time of Rajiv Mathur, the seniormost Information Commissioner was by convention
appointed the CIC. In October 2014, the government advertised the post of CIC,
and over 200 applications were received, Earlier in July, it had advertised
three posts of Commissioners, and received over 500 applications. The DoPT
recently told The Indian Express in reply to an RTI application that it is yet
to shortlist applicants.
The NDA
government has already broken the ‘seniormost’ convention at UPSC, where it
appointed Deepak Gupta chairman, bypassing the seniormost member, Alka Sirohi.
The RTI law
was conceived by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government in 2002 by the name of
Freedom of Information Act, but the credit went to Sonia Gandhi. The delay in
appointing the CIC militates against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s declared
“quest for transparency and accountability”.
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