Times of India: Kerala: Monday, May 14, 2018.
While the
state government would be relieved over the fact that new information
commissioners have sworn-in after a long gap, the state information commission
(SIC) has not been able to dispose of even half the number of petitions received
during the past five years.
The pendency
of petitions received at SIC has been so high that as on March 31, 2018, 14,990
cases remain undisposed with appeal petitions numbering 10,722 and complaint
petitions at 4,268. The analysis of figures shows that the first five years of
SIC were exemplary for the state with the commission recording 100% disposal
rate of petitions between 2006-2011.
The
commission began losing its way from 2012 when over 600 appeal petitions out of
2,702 could not be disposed in the year. The pending files kept on piling up
from 2013 and the sluggishness was most reflected in disposal of appeal
petitions. The percentage of disposal could hardly reach 50% since 2013 for
appeal petitions. In 2014 only 1,217 out of 3,326 files could be disposed of
and in 2016, the commission received 2,810 appeal petitions and it cleared just
1,190 petitions.
"The
absence of commissioners may not be the only reason for such severe backlog. It
has always been a case of political appointments and hence there has been an
evident lack of commitment, which results in such high pendency of petitions in
Kerala," said Peter Myaliparampil, state co-ordinator of the National
Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI).
"When petitions
do not get cleared for four years, people lose faith in the RTI's power.
Another effect is that even the public information officers take the liberty to
deny information because they don't have to face penalty in a state with such
high pendency," he said. Even the number of information officers who have
been awarded penalty for denial of information between 2016 and 2017 is 559, a
number which could have been higher had the clearance rate for petition been
high in the state.
Between 2016
and 2018, when the SIC remained a single-man body, the pendency touched an
all-time high. In 2017, only 367 appeal petitions were disposed out of 2,832
petitions and the backlog kept getting bigger for complaint petitions as well.
In 2018, the
total number of petitions, which have been cleared until March 31 was just 3
when the number of petitions received was 1,034.
Chief
information commissioner Vinson M Paul, who has singlehandedly run the
commission from May 2016 cleared 3,632 appeal petitions and 848 complaint
petitions between May 2016-March 2018.
"The
first challenge was to clear the pendency with chief information commissioner.
Once that was done, the attention was on clearing files with other
commissioners which had been pending since 2011. Files were being cleared at a
rate of 50% from 2017 and 50% from 2011. There were also efforts to clear
pending files in other years between 2011 and 2017," said Paul.
While
time-limits have been prescribed in the RTI Act for furnishing information for
public information officers and first appellate authorities, the act has been
silent on time-limit for disposal of petitions for state information
commission.