DNA:
Mumbai: Friday, October 26, 2018.
Applicants
may have to wait longer to get their appeals heard at the Maharashtra State
Information Commission. With three more vacancies coming up in three months,
the SIC will have four benches vacant in all. By next month, the Pune and Navi
Mumbai benches will fall vacant. The Brihanmumbai bench will fall vacant by
January next.
At
present, the commission has only six benches of information commissioners and
the post of chief filled. Besides the chief, RTI Act allows 10 information
commissioners. However, in the state only seven benches have been sanctioned,
of which the Nagpur bench is vacant and the chief’s post was filled up in 2018
after a gap of nearly a year.
Vacancies
have been blamed for the nearly 40,000 pending second appeal and complaints at the
commission. An applicant approaches the commission when appeals and complaints
do not get information on time.
“It
is unfortunate that statutory bodies are left vacant for a long time. There is
no effort by government to appoint these commissioners who are considered to be
ambassadors of the RTI Act.”
“RTI
empowers each person to get information and fight out his case. It has curbed
corruption to a large extent and even ensured that Supreme Court orders are
implemented. If commissioners are appointed, the required staff is not given
and this affects the functioning of the commission,” said Bhaskar Prabhu, a
city-based RTI activist.
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