RTI Act lies buried in several states

Times of India: Mumbai: Monday, February 03, 2014.

Eight years after the RTI Act was enacted, a reality check reveals that accessing information in most parts of the country is a long wait. While most states do not have enough commissioners and the pendency of appeals has only increased, in several other parts of India, the process of hearing appeals has become non-functional.

RTI activistSunil Ahya, who commissioned the survey by connecting with information commissions across the county and also the local activists, said that the Act allows maximum of 11 commissioners to be appointed and so if the pendency rates are so high then the state governments should appoint more commissioners.

"In my experience at least 75% of the RTI applications that I have filed have needed to be heard by the commissioner. With the high percentage of cases needing a hearing, the government should take steps to expedite the process," said Ahya.

Within states too, there is a disparity. In Maharashtra, for instance, the second appeal is heard earliest in Mumbai where it takes close to a fortnight and the time lag is worse in places like Nagpur, Aurangabad and Pune where it may take up to two years to hear an appeal. In fact, the state's chief information commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad had requested the governor to order the state to fill the vacant posts of information commissioners.

"For period ranging up to two to three years, four posts of information commissioners of Greater Mumbai, Konkan, Nagpur and Amravati are vacant with the result at present 29,052 appeals and 3,338 complaints are pending," his letter stated. A peculiar problem has risen in Goa where most RTI activists do not attend the appeal hearing. Said activist Aires Rodrigues, "A chief information commissioner was appointed three months ago. But as per the rules, this must be a multi-member body and we don't want to waste time attending the hearing as they are going to be overruled in court." The state has put out an advertisement to hire commissioners but the last few appointments have run into trouble as activists have claimed that appointments have been politicized.

Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana have the maximum count of information commissioners 10, nine and eight respectively. Probably hence, it takes merely a month to 1.5 months to dispose an appeal.