Deccan Herald: Opinion: Thursday, July 12, 2018.
The Supreme
Court has pulled up the central government and eight state governments for
their laxity in appointing information commissioners. The court has issued
notices to them on the basis of a petition filed by Right to Information (RTI)
activists seeking a directive by the court to appoint the commissioners
immediately. The petition wants governments to start the process of appointment
four months before a post falls vacant. The vacancies in the information
commissions are glaring. The eight states include Karnataka, where there are
six vacancies, Andhra Pradesh, where all posts are vacant, and Maharashtra,
where there are four vacancies. Gujarat does not have a chief information
commissioner, either. The shortage of commissioners has affected the work in
all information commissions. The petition has said that the governments are
trying to stifle the information law by refusing to appoint commissioners in time.
The commissions are partially paralysed in most states and fully non-functional
in Andhra Pradesh.
Due to the
shortage of commissioners, there are 23,500 complaints and appeals pending at
the Central Information Commission. Karnataka has a backlog of 33,000 cases,
and Maharashtra 40,000. Other states also have thousands of cases pending. The
RTI Act prescribes a statutory period of 30 days for a query to be answered.
The first appeal has to be disposed of within 45 days. But cases are pending in
some states for years. Information often becomes irrelevant and useless when it
is not given in time. The delay is deliberately caused by government
departments and agencies which do not want to give away information that may
put them in an uncomfortable situation. The failure to appoint commissioners is
part of that strategy, and the situation is created by governments to defeat
the purpose of the RTI law. The Supreme Court’s question to the governments as
to why appointments are not made despite a huge backlog has this clear answer.
The tendency
to refuse information on various grounds is also increasing. Most of these are
flimsy and untenable excuses. The aim is to buy time till a decision is taken
on appeal, and to tire out the petitioner through the official process. There
have also been attempts to discourage the filing of petitions by other means,
like increasing the fee and introducing procedural changes. Governments,
political parties and leaders have not been kind to people’s right to
information ever since RTI became law and have tried in many ways to subvert
it. But citizens should make sure that they do not lose the power that they
have gained through RTI. The court must direct the central and state
governments to make timely appointments of information commissioners.