DNA: New Delhi: Friday, April 3, 2015.
Not only is there a drop in the number of public authorities reporting to the Central Information Commission (CIC) on the status of Right to Information (RTI) applications and disposal, RTI fatigue also seems to be setting in among the general public.
The annual report of the Central Information Commission (CIC) for the year 2013-14 shows that 8.34 lakh applications were received by various public authorities, a yearly increase of just 2.7%. In earlier years, the increase was between 20 and 25%. RTI applications had increased by 22% in 2012-13, as compared to the previous year.
The number of rejections for reasons other than Sections 8, 9, and 24 is also increasing. The rejections under "Others" category have increased by 4.4% over the previous year. The report shows that trend of rejections in the PMO, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Supreme Court, Comptroller and Auditor General and particularly the ministry of personnel, which includes the DoPT- the nodal department for RTI- is increasing year on year.
The CIC report says that the rejection rate in the finance ministry has reduced this year, although the ministry gets the largest number of RTI applications. Ministry of external affairs' rejection rate is down by more than 40% even though the number of RTI applications has gone up. Similarly the rejection rates in railways, commerce, chemicals and fertilisers, civil aviation and food and environment ministries have also fallen substantially. Amongst the constitutional authorities the Election Commission has the lowest rejection rate. There is a reduction in the rejection rates of Army, but the Navy has seen a whopping increase in the rejection rate from 1% in 2012-13 to almost 7% last year. The Air Force has seen a marginal increase in the rejection rate.
Corporate affairs ministry saw an almost 300% increase in the rejection rate last year. Power ministry's rejection rate has doubled. Labour ministry's rejection rate appears to be drastically down, but then it has a very poor reporting rate. Rejection rate in defence ministry has increased but its pendency of RTI applications from previous year is also very high. Reasons are not known for such high pendency, unless a very large number of RTI applications were filed in the last month of the previous reporting year.
But a more worrisome trend is that a quarter of the public authorities have not reported their RTI status to the CIC. The Parliament (Secretariats of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) has never given RTI status to the CIC even once in the last nine years. Similarly, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) which is the nodal Department for implementing the RTI Act also did not submit its RTI stats to the CIC for 2013-14. Further, Delhi High Court has also never submitted RTI stats to the CIC, but the Supreme Court has done so every year faithfully.
RTI activist and programme coordinator at Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) Venkatesh Nayak believes this is a cause for concern. "RTI activists should demand that departmental action be initiated against the senior officers of these errant ministries and departments for violating the civil service conduct rules. Last year, the Conduct Rules for All India Services Officers (IAS, IPS and IFoS) were amended to make transparency and accountability the core values. Not adhering to a core value could potentially be treated as misconduct," he said.
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