Economic Times: New Delhi: Saturday, January 13, 2018.
Central
Information Commission (CIC) has returned more than half the Right to
Information (RTI) appeals and complaints sent to it by applicants for denial of
information by the government.
Data collated
by ET from the latest CIC statistics for 2017 reveals that the Commission processed
29,023 cases between January and December 2017 and returned 16,786 cases (57%)
invoking a little-known section 9 of RTI Act rules which has been sparingly
used by CIC in the past.
So far, CIC
had been registering cases and asking the applicant to make good any deficiency
in the paperwork before the hearing. However, it now uses power on 'Return of
Appeal' enshrined in Rule 9 of the RTI Act rules, 2012. The rule says, "An
appeal may be returned to the appellant if it is not accompanied by documents
as specified in Rule 8, for removing deficiencies and filing the appeal
complete in all respect."
RTI activists
have cried foul accusing the Commission of returning the appeals to keep
pendency figures, which had touched an all-time high of 34,000 in 2016, low. At
present, the pendency at the Commission is 24,000 cases. Anjali Bhardwaj of
National Campaign for People's Right to Information says, "It is a way to
not allow people their right to information.
Our study has
shown that barely 5% of the people denied information reach CIC to seek their
right. When you put them into paperwork, you are discouraging them
further." Activist Lokesh Batra pointed out that since Commission returned
half the cases, the pendency has reduced at the Commission. When contacted,
secretary to the commission Anjali A Srivastava said, "The hearings need
to be effective. For that we need to have all documents. This is why we have
been returning these applications and not rejecting them."
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