Hindustan Times: Mumbai: Saturday,
October 29, 2016.
State chief
information commissioner (CIC) Ratnakar Gaikwad and former central information
commissioner (CIC) Shailesh Gandhi has approached chief minister Devendra
Fadnavis to fill three of the eight posts of information commissioners lying
vacant.
The last post
to be vacated was that of the information commissioner of Nashik on October 15.
Other vacancies are in Aurangabad and Amravati.
“Currently,
three posts of are vacant and the pendency of RTI pleas is 8,900 in Nashik,
5,324 in Aurangabad and 9,578 in Amravati. Every month, we receive 400 fresh
RTI applications. Considering the increasing number of pendencies, the vacant
posts can affect the information commission’s work adversely,” said Gaikwad, in
his letter to the chief minister.
Raising
similar concern Shailesh Gandhi, in his letter, said the Maharashtra
Information Commission is being pushed into becoming dysfunctional and
irrelevant due to carelessness of the government.
It further
stated the RTI Act envisages a maximum number of eleven information
commissioners in a state, whereas Maharashtra has only eight ICs, who are
barely able to cope with the increasing number of applications being filed.
“Across the
nation most commissioners dispose of around 3,000 cases a year. Maharashtra
commissioners dispose of about 4,500 cases a year. Despite this, in some of the
benches, the pendency is more than two years. Unless commissions dispose of
cases in less than three months, they will stop being able to service the
average citizen,” Gandhi said in the letter.
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