RTI appeals cleared in Tamil Nadu drops 50% in 2014

Times of India: Chennai: Monday, 01 December 2014.

The number of RTI appeals disposed of by the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission (TNSIC) has plunged by more than 50%. Statistics from the commission's website (www.tnsic.gov.in) show that the number of appeals the commission attended to decreased from 19,889 in 2013 to 8,121 till November 2014.

The commission receives an average of 60,000 RTI applications every year.

Though RTI Act permits each state 10 commissioners and a chief of the panel, TNSIC has only four commissioners, Christopher Nelson, P Thamilselvan, B Neelambikai, S F Akbar and chief commissioner K S Sripathi.

RTI campaigners say the delay in appointing more commissioners caused a rise in the backlog of petitions. "The number of appeals filed has been growing but the government has failed to appoint more commissioners," said Siva Elango, president of Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, an NGO that campaigns for transparency.

He said the inability of the commission to dispose petitions denies applicants their fundamental right. "The existing commissioners are not keen to dispose of appeals on time. This has resulted in applicants having to wait for more than six months to have their complaints heard," Elango said.

In Madhya Pradesh, the commission conducts lok adalats to dispose of RTI appeals. TNSIC also held lok adalats in districts earlier but has now stopped doing so.

The commission blames shortage of staff and funds for the backlog.

"We find it difficult to go through all the complaints as there is a huge staff crunch," a senior official of TNSIC said. "The government has not acted on repeated pleas to provide us with more staff."

The Supreme Court had asked governments to identify candidates for the post of information commissioner, with expertise in fields mentioned in the RTI Act, which includes law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media, and administration and governance. Most appointments in TNSIC have been political, activists say.

"Political appointments to the commission destroy the purpose of the act. The government should appoint RTI activists as commissioners to reduce the pendency of appeals," Elango said.

In an earlier interaction with TOI, RTI activist and former central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said, "The main issue is that most commissioners are appointed as dispensation of patronage and a few (including myself) by random circumstances. There should be transparent criteria and a process for selecting information commissioners." Gandhi said he disposed of more than 5,000 cases a year as central information commissioner.

The government has tabled in the assembly only RTI annual reports till 2008. The commission's annual reports should declare the number of RTI applications received by public information officers (PIOs) of government departments, cases disposed of and fines imposed on PIOs by the commission for violations under the RTI Act.

The information commission can impose a penalty of up to Rs 25,000 on a PIO for failing to furnish information sought within 30 days, or for deliberately providing incorrect, incomplete or misleading information. But TNSIC rarely takes action against errant PIOs.