The Indian Express: Pune: Saturday, April 28, 2018.
Worried about
the long list of pending second appeals, the State Information Commissionerate
(SIC) has echoed a demand often made by Right To Information (RTI) activists in
the state: increase the number of SIC benches in Maharashtra. Second appeals
are filed before the Information Commissioners after an RTI user has exhausted
all options with the Public Information Officer and the Appellate Authority. If
the applicant is unable to access information even after approaching the SIC,
he/she has to move the High Court.
The pendency
of second appeals has been a matter of concern among RTI applicants, as some of
them have been forced to wait for as long as two years to receive responses to
their applications. By the end of February, Maharashtra had 37,435 pending
second appeals. Pune, Mumbai, Aurangabad and Nashik have seen the highest
number of such appeals.
In its 2016
annual report, published after a delay of two years, the SIC has asked that
additional benches be set up in Pune, Mumbai and Aurangabad. The state already
has seven SIC benches in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Amravati, Konkan and
Nagpur. Besides these six benches, the state chief information commissioner
operates from Mumbai.
The RTI Act
allows for a maximum of 11 SICs, including the state chief information
commissioner. Citing the high number of pending appeals, the 11th report of the
State Information Commissioner has stated that it is necessary to appoint more
SIC benches. “… for better implementation of the RTI Act, it is necessary to
have three more benches in Pune, Mumbai and Aurangabad, as these areas have a
higher number of pending cases,” stated the report.
Pune-based
activist Vijay Kumbhar alleged that information commissioners often don’t
function properly. “… The commissioners should distribute work among themselves
and ensure that the number of pending cases is brought down…,” he said.
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