Kashmir
Times: Srinagar: Wednesday, 22 July 2015.
At a time
when Lok Adalats are finding popularity with National Legal Services Authority
(NLSA) having organised these from Supreme Court to Taluk Courts level, it is
time to have some similar mechanism at Central Information Commission (CIC),
where collegiums can be formed consisting of RTI-experts from civil society and
former Central Information Commissioners can to assist CIC in fast disposal of
about 40000 pending there. It is also necessary because extra-ordinary delayed
information due to heavy backlog of cases at CIC justifies saying ‘Information
Delayed is Information Denied’. Only such cases where petitioner/s and
respondent/s are not satisfied with proceedings at such suggested collegiums,
may then reach to concerned Central Information Commissioners for detailed
hearing. Such collegiums can later also be utilised as RTI aid clinics for
assisting members of public file RTI petitions like NLSA did by getting 2648
Village Legal Aid Clinics inaugurated by the then Chief Justice of India.
For this, a
computerised data-base in different formats should be prepared whereby it may
be possible to track a consolidated list of all petitions (separately for those
under section 18 and 19 of RTI Act) filed both for individual public-authority
and petitioner. Suggested collegiums at CIC then can take all petitions of a
particular petitioner with same public-authority for fast reduction of number
of cases pending at CIC. It will also result in huge saving of man0hours and
conveyance-charges both for petitioners and public-authorities. Every CIC
hearing costs a lot to the exchequer, and disposal through collegiums in such
manner will result in huge saving of funds because of substantially less number
of cases listed for hearing before Central Information Commissioners.
CIC-collegiums can also arrange public-hearing of complaints filed under
section 18 of RTI Act for fast-track disposal of complaints at CIC.
—Madhu
Agrawal,
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