Himanshi Dhawan, TNN, Sep 13, 2010 ;
NEW DELHI: Burning a hole in the government's oft used argument that Right to Information Act needed to be amended to prevent its misuse and discourage frivolous and vexatious applications, government-appointed information commissioners have said the legislation was not being misused.
A survey by NGO Parivartan found that only 22% of information commissioners (ICs) felt that there was misuse of the law while only 11% felt that applications filed by people were frivolous.
Parivartan sent questions to 104 ICs in the country of which 44 responded. Eight commissioners emphatically said there was no misuse of RTI Act. Information commissioners from Nagaland, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Goa felt there was no misuse of RTI Act.
Bihar chief information commissioner Ashok Kumar Choudhary felt that since illiteracy was so high, the Act may be misused. "But I have personally not come across any such case so far," he said.
Eighteen commissioners felt that RTI Act was being misused in a small number of cases. Chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and IC Shailesh Gandhi put such misuse at less than 5% while M L Sharma felt most of the misuse was by government officials.
Only about 10 commissioners felt that misuse was more than 10%. IC M M Ansari felt that a very large number of people, almost 80%, misused the Act. "The situation is growing from bad to worse. Now, people only misuse the Act. There is no provision to impose penalty on people, who are misusing the Act. Most of the applicants are government officers who either want to solve their grievances or want to know details of their promotions," he said.
IC Annapurna Dixit put misuse at 30% while Anil Joshi of Chhattisgarh pegged it at 50%.
Similarly, 24 commissioners felt the incidence of frivolous RTI applications was very little, less than 10% and only five commissioners felt that more than 10% applications were frivolous. Nine commissioners said they did not come across any frivolous RTI applications.
Almost all information commissioners in the country are saddled with huge pendencies. While CIC has a pendency of almost a year, Maharashtra and UP have pendencies of almost two years.
The information watchdogs were also asked if the imposition of penalties had an impact on reducing the influx of appeals and complaints to the commission. Most felt that penalties did impact the decision. However, eight commissioners feel penalties had nothing to do with pendencies while five said there was no evidence to draw any conclusions either way.
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