Like Cong, BJP govt crippling RTI Act

Times of India: Nagpur: Saturday, 12 December 2015.

There would be no acchhe din for RTI too. The BJP government at the Centre also seems bent upon crippling the sunshine law by not appointing chief information commissioner in time and appointing them for very short tenures.

On December 2, 2015, Vijai Sharma retired as CIC at 65 after just six-month tenure. The BJP government failed to appoint his successor ahead of his retirement. Other political parties too have not put any pressure on the government for timely filling up this important constitutional post. The leader of opposition is one of the panel members to select CIC but it seems no party is keen on implementing RTI Act.

There is no full-time CIC since September 2013. The post was managed for one year through additional charge up to September 2014. Thereafter, it was kept vacant for nine months up to June 2015 with nobody having even additional charge. Narendra Modi government then appointed senior-most information commissioner Sharma as CIC.

Now a new CIC will have to be selected through a long process. "It is really matter of investigation why it requires more than six months to appoint a CIC," asked RTI activist Avinash Prabhune. On June 4, Prabhune had written to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to appoint CIC with long tenures. He demanded department of personnel and training (DoPT), working under PMO, be made accountable for failure to appoint CIC in a time-bound manner.

On December 3, 2015, the number of pending cases with the Commission had crossed 24,000. CIC website is not indicating any pendency figures of CIC himself. "A look at the number of cases at CIC website shows jugglery to hide pendency," Prabhune alleged.

Another RTI activist from the city Abhay Kolarkar said, "Delay in appointing regular CIC will only help public authorities and institutes wanting to withhold information. Delay in justice under RTI is nothing but defeating the Act. If the matters are decided 1-2 years later, then they lose relevance."