SIC order was not followed in 17% cases

Times of India: Nagpur: Sunday, December 02, 2018.

The Nagpur bench of State Information Commission (SIC) heard 6,923 appeals between January 2017 and October 2018 and officials did not follow its orders in 1,174 cases which translates into 17%. Information commissioner Dilip Dharurkar said that various actions were taken against these officials.

Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Dharurkar said that state government’s decision to allow citizens to peruse files on one every week would certainly reduce the number of cases coming to the SIC. “Many times people realize by just going through the document that they don’t need it,” he added. He further said that digitalization of government records was also reducing the need of citizens to approach the commission.

When Dharurkar had taken charge of Nagpur bench in January 2017 around 2,000 cases were pending. “Now the pendency is next to negligible,” said the commissioner.

He further said that as per law, a lot of information has to be made public by government departments without anybody seeking it under Right to Information (RTI) Act. “Many times I get cases where petitioners complain that this law was being violated by a department. I order the officials to publicly display information,” he added.

Dharurkar said that while RTI had empowered the citizens it was misused by some people. “Media can play a big role in stopping this misuse,” he added.