Governance Now: New Delhi: Tuesday, March 13, 2018.
A series of
RTI queries by a couple of civil society organisations have found that several
state information commissions (SIC) have not appointed officials for the post
of information commissioners (IC), lying vacant during the period under review.
The information commissions, hence, have been functioning at a reduced
capacity. The non-appointment of commissioners has led to a large pendency of
appeals and complaints.
In Andhra
Pradesh not a single commissioner has been appointed to the commission till
date, said the ‘report card on performance of ICs in India’, brought out by
Stark Nagrik Sangathan(SNS) and Centre for Equity Studies (CES). In West
Bengal, the SIC is functioning with only two commissioners. Between (November
2015 to July 2016 and April 2017 to July 2017), the SIC did not hear any
appeals or complaints as there was only one commissioner in the SIC during this
time.
In
Maharashtra, the chief information commissioner of Maharashtra retired in April
2017. The post is being held tentatively
by a state information commissioner, although there is no such explicit
provision under the RTI Act, 2005, the report noted.
“The SIC of
Nagaland has been without a Chief since September 2017. The Gujarat chief
information commissioner retired in January 2018 and the position is currently
vacant,” the report said.
The SIC of
Kerala is functioning with a single commissioner. “There are currently four
vacancies in the CIC the first of which arose in December 2016. Of the existing
seven commissioners, four commissioners, including the chief, are set to retire
in 2018,” the report said.
A key set of
findings of the report is the time taken by a state commission in disposing an
appeal. The report notes, “A matter filed on November 1, 2017, would be
disposed in the West Bengal SIC after 43 years- in the year 2060!” Kerala
information commission, the report said, would take six years and six months.
In Odisha, it will a case will disposed in over 5 years.
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