Economic Times: New Delhi: Wednesday,
June 29, 2016.
Bogged down
by an ever-increasing pendency, Central Information Commission (CIC) has found
a novel way to dispose of cases - identify "habitual" applicants. The
transparency watchdog has identified 75 applicants who have filed 5,000 cases
in CIC and would now bunch their cases on a single day and drastically reduce
pendency.
Chief
information commissioner R K Mathur would make a beginning in July when he
would hear 700 cases in a single day. According to sources, the RTI applicant
has come in appeal against multiple authorities, including courts, as he has
been denied voluminous information regarding employees, their assets and other
details. As per CIC records, this would be the highest number of cases heard in
a single day at the commission. "Usually the CIC does not insist on
personal hearings for RTI applicants from other states and gives the option of
video conferencing. But in this case, the applicant has been asked to be
present in person for the hearings as the matter pertains to multiple public
authorities," a CIC official told ET
This is a
part of CIC's attempt to reduce pendency by bunching up appeal cases. The
commission has initiated an exercise to electronically sift through the pending
cases and find RTI applicants appearing multiple times. These cases would be
bunched up together and then taken up on a single day. Following this, the
Commission would also bunch up cases public authority-wise. At present, the
Commission has 36,701 cases pending before it. These include 7,375 complaints
and 29,326 RTI appeals.
CIC is now
considering having its own videoconferencing facility to hear more number of
cases in a day. At present, CIC has multiple slots of 15 minutes through
National Informatics Centre (NIC). "This limits the efficiency of
information commissioners as most hearings are done on videoconferencing. So if
a commissioner wraps up a hearing in less than 15 minutes, he is idle till the
next slot. So we are considering our own dedicated facility and staff," an
official said.
CIC is
exploring the feasibility of video-conferencing through agencies like Becil and
Polycom.
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