Live Law: New Delhi: Saturday, June 30, 2018.
With
thousands of complaints and appeals under the RTI Act pending before the
Central Information Commission and the commissions in various states plagued by
unfilled vacancies, three transparency campaigners have moved the Supreme Court
seeking direction to the Centre to immediately fill up all vacant posts through
a transparent and time-bound manner.
Petitioners
Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convenor of the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to
Information (NCPRI); Commodore Lokesh K Batra (Retd) and Amrita Johri, a member
of NCPRI; have moved the apex court ruing how “the Government of India and
state governments have attempted to stifle the functioning of the RTI Act by
failing to do their statutory duty of ensuring appointment of commissioners in
the Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions, in a
timely manner”.
“This is
despite huge backlogs of appeals and complaints in many information commissions
across the country. Due to non-appointment of information commissioners,
several information commissions take many months, and in some cases, even
years, to decide appeals and complaints due to the accumulation of pending
appeals/complaints, thus defeating the entire object of the RTI Act, 2005.
Currently, there are four vacancies in the Central Information Commission, even
though more than 23,500 appeals and complaints are pending,” says the petition.
Some of
the shortcomings which the petition highlights are:
- The State Information Commission (SIC) of Andhra Pradesh is completely non-functional as not a single information commissioner has been appointed to the commission.
- The SIC of Maharashtra, which has a backlog of more than 40,000 appeals and complaints, has four vacancies.
- The SIC of Kerala is functioning with only a single commissioner and has more than 14,000 pending appeals and complaints.
- There are six vacancies in the SIC of Karnataka even though nearly 33,000 appeals and complaints are pending.
- Odisha is functioning with only three commissioners and Telangana with two commissioners and their backlogs are more than 10,000 and 15,000 appeals/complaints, respectively.
- The SIC of West Bengal is functioning with only two commissioners and is hearing appeals/complaints which were filed 10 years ago.
- Further, several information commissions like that of Gujarat, Nagaland and Maharashtra are functioning without the Chief Information Commissioner, even though the RTI Act envisages a crucial role for the chief commissioner, with the administration and superintendence of the commission vesting with the chief.
The petition
also adds that lack of transparency in the appointment of information
commissioners, and the violation of directions of the Supreme Court regarding
the procedure for for appointment of information.
It is to be
noted that on June 5, 2017, petitioners had also signed a letter by the NCPRI
addressed to the Prime Minister urging him to fill the vacancies in the Central
Information Commission by appointing information commissioners.
In September
2017, a response to an RTI application revealed that the Prime Minister’s
Office had treated the letter as a grievance and registered it on the online
grievance portal of the Central government. Upon tracking the grievance on the
online portal, the status showed that the case was closed as the matter was
pending.
The petition
impleads the Centre, governments of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala,
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, Karnataka, Telangana and Nagaland, and is listed
for hearing on July 2.
It prays for
direction to the Centre to take immediate steps to fill the vacancies in the
CIC by making the appointment of information commissioners in a transparent and
time-bound manner while also directing the states concerned to appoint Chief
State Information Commissioners and Information Commissioners.
It also urges
that the government should be directed to commence the selection process for
information commissioners, including the chief, at least three months prior to
the occurrence of vacancy and all records of deliberations and rational criteria
related to shortlisting and selection of the Chief Information Commissioner and
other Information Commissioners be properly recorded and made available to
citizens in consonance with the provisions of the RTI Act.
Besides, it
seeks transparency in the selection process by the publication of
advertisements for inviting applications, publicly disclosing, including
through the website, the procedure and rational criteria for shortlisting
candidates, if any shortlisting is done.
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