With no CIC, backlog mounts to over 9,700

Times of India: New Delhi: Tuesday, November 04, 2014.

If your RTI plea is rejected by the PMO, President's office, Supreme Court, cabinet secretariat or Parliament, do not expect redressal anytime soon. With the absence of the chief information commissioner, RTI appeals and complaints related to these authorities have mounted to over 9,700 in the last 10 months.

In just two months since the last CIC chief retired, 2000 cases have piled up with an average 30-40 cases adding up every day. Chief information commissioner Rajiv Mathur retired on August 22 leaving a pendency of 7,518 cases. This has now increased to 9,739 according to the commission's progress report as on November 3.

The CIC was allocated appeals related to President's secretariat, Vice-President's secretariat, Cabinet Secretariat, Supreme Court and all high courts, Parliament, Election Commission, CAG, ministries of DoPT, power and parliamentary affairs among other departments. "Work allocation has remained the same as before so the cases that were being heard by the chief remain pending," a source at the commission said.

Lawyer and RTI activist RK Jain said he had over 100 cases pending related just to these public authorities. "I have been waiting for a hearing for over a year. Some cases are related to bureaucratic corruption while there are appeals against DoPT itself that are not being heard," Jain said. Incidentally, DoPT is the administrative department for CIC.

The commission had 26,115 cases pending as on December 2013 and estimates suggest that cases will come up for hearing only after a year. The situation has forced former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and former information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi to seek details of what efforts were being made by the government to appoint a CIC.

Activist SC Agarwal also filed an RTI application seeking information on the revised allocation of work since the retirement of the previous chief. The DoPT ignored precedence and recently sought applications for the CIC's post.