State Information Commission yet to dispose of cases from 2014

The Hindu: Mumbai: Friday, November 16, 2018.

The Maharashtra State Information Commission (SIC) has 39,709 appeals and complaints pending, as the government is yet to respond to the SIC’s demand in June for the appointment of three additional commissioners. Of the cases, 16,718 were in 2017, which raises concerns over the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

According to data available with The Hindu, by the end of September 2018, a total of 35,315 appeals and 4,394 complaints were pending with the SIC.

Ever since the RTI Act was implemented, the highest number of pending cases recorded in Maharashtra is in 2018. The State is unable to clear cases from 2014. For this year, 20,734 cases were pending till September, by which, all eight information commissioners had disposed of only 3,550 cases.

The State had no Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) for over nine months after Ratnakar Gaikwad stepped down from the post in 2017. Former Chief Secretary Sumit Mullick was appointed the CIC in May 2018.

 “The SIC had in June this year written to the government demanding three more information commissioners to clear the pending cases. We receive 600-700 cases every month, but due to the backlog, we have not been able to attend to all these cases,” an official from the SIC said.

The official said despite having brought Mr. Mullick in May, he was tasked with handling the proceedings of the Bhima-Koregaon riot hearing. “His priority is the hearing of the riot case. He is not able to focus and spend time to clear the pending cases,” the official said. Mr. Mullick was in Pune on Thursday in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon case, and could not be contacted.

Former Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi told The Hindu that he has been writing to Mr. Mullick for over four months requesting to clear cases. “Keeping cases pending for months and years is itself contradicting the very passing of the Act. People come seeking information and we cannot keep them waiting for long,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi said there appears to be no evidence of the average disposal of over 800 cases per month by the commissioners, and at this rate, the total disposal will take more than a year. He also pointed out a Karnataka High Court decision which mandates that second appeals be decided by an Information Commission within 45 days.