DNA: Mumbai: Sunday, March 11, 2018.
Maharashtra state
information commission (MSIC) ranked second after UPSIC in pending RTI appeals
and complaints, as per a nation-wide study conducted by an NGO on Information
Commissions (ICs) released on Friday. According to the study, the state failed
to be compared in a number of parameters because the annual report and data was
not available.
The Report
card on the performance of information commissions in India is a study
conducted by Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and Centre of Equity Studies (CES).
It compared all
other ICs, except Jammu and Kashmir, from January 2016 to October 2017. The
report covered various aspects such as number of appeals and complaints
registered, disposed, returned by each IC, quantum of penalty imposed, amount
recovered, compensation awarded, disciplinary action, appeals and complaints,
and annual reports published.
The study
found that Uttar Pradesh has registered the highest number of appeals and
complaints (83,054), followed by the Central Information Commission (47,756)
and Karnataka (32,403). Mizoram and Meghalaya registered the lowest number of
appeals and complaints 21 and 63 respectively.
Maharashtra
could not be compared in most parameters because it has not published its 2016
and 2017 annual reports as yet. On appeals and complaints registered and
disposed, the study stated that the monthly reports that MSIC recommended,
provided incomplete information. "They have linked wrongly and data for
some months – like February and November 2017 is missing. Appeals of January
2016 are not reported," says Amrita Johri, who worked on the study.
"A
message of transparency must be sent by the commission," says Anjali
Bhardwaj, who co-authored the study, "The moral authority of it being the
guardian of the transparency is lost if it does not give information.
Maharashtra is a big state and gets large number of appeals. To say that such
figures will be available only after the annual report is prepared, is
wrong."
"Imagine
if every other public authority said that they will give information once the
annual report is prepared?," adds Johri. "That would defeat the
purpose of the RTI Act. The penalty and enquiry report is missing for many
years on the link provided, which gives one an idea about the compliance of
orders."
MSIC is also
one of the three commissions without a permanent information chief it has not
had one since April 2017. Some appeals in MSIC have been pending for over two
years.
Max
Pending
As of October
31, 2017, the maximum number of appeals/ complaints were pending in UP (41,561)
followed by Maharashtra (41,178) and Karnataka (32,992)
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