Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
The working of the state information
commissions (SICs) dropped from 80% in June to 44% in July, a survey by the
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has found.
The CHRI is an organisation working
towards greater transparency in governance. The survey was conducted contacting
each of 28 SICs. The first survey (in April) had found that none of the SICs
were working, but during the second survey (in May) 12 SICs had opened their
offices, but only eight were conducting hearings. According to its third rapid
telephonic survey, the organisation found that the commissions that had
previously started attending to litigants June had stopped by July.
“We found, out of the 29 Information
Commissions nearly 80% (23 Commissions) had resumed hearings during Unlock1.0
starting on 1st June, 2020,” says CHRI’s report. The Central Information
Commission began functioning in mid-April.
“We continued to track the working of
Information Commissions during the Unlock 2.0 phase... This time we found, only
44% Information Commissions under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act),
i.e., 13 out of 29 Commissions were conducting hearings during Unlock 2.0
starting on 1st July,” the report adds.
SIC officials say that reason for the
hearings stopping in July is because of the spike in Covid-19 cases across the
country. However, the inability to conduct the hearings has drawn criticism
from social activists for denying people access to information.
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