Times of India: Chennai: Tuesday, April 1, 2025.
Tamil Nadu state information commission is getting slower, sloppier and opaque. The panel disposed of 18,752 pending appeals last year, an increase of nearly 5,000 over the 13,850 appeals disposed of in 2021. However, in the last three years, the pendency of appeals has doubled from 21,657 to 44,906 as of Dec 2024.
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What the numbers mean is
that petitions taken up by the information commission for hearing have gathered
dust for two to three years. This is after public information officers and
appellate authorities took 90 days to reject or not reply to the original petitions.
In Dec 2024 alone, the commission disposed of 1,317 petitions, of which 47% had been pending since 2022 and 33% since 2023. And, 8% of petitions were pending for three years. "Do you think information sought in 2021 will have any value in 2024? It is as good as the petitioner not getting anything at all," said M Kasimayan, a city-based RTI activist. Kasimayan accused the information commission of backdoor dealings with the public information officers to effectively kill the RTI Act by rejecting requests to safeguard govt officers.
Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-graft NGO, recently highlighted how each information commissioner at the headquarters was handling just 10 to 12 petitions a day, whereas judges in Madras high court disposed of 50 petitions every day. Arappor wrote to the state govt to fill two vacant information commissioner posts and increase the sanctioned posts by four. It got a reply from the human resources dept that filling the existing vacancies is under consideration, while increasing sanctioned strength comes under the purview of govt policy. "There is no transparency regarding the appointment of information commissioners either, as the SC directions on the selection of information commissioners have been ignored," said Jayaram Venkatesan, Arappor convener.
The information commission has not uploaded its annual reports for the last three years. A senior official said the annual report for 2022 will be uploaded this week.
Tamil Nadu state information commission is getting slower, sloppier and opaque. The panel disposed of 18,752 pending appeals last year, an increase of nearly 5,000 over the 13,850 appeals disposed of in 2021. However, in the last three years, the pendency of appeals has doubled from 21,657 to 44,906 as of Dec 2024.
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In Dec 2024 alone, the commission disposed of 1,317 petitions, of which 47% had been pending since 2022 and 33% since 2023. And, 8% of petitions were pending for three years. "Do you think information sought in 2021 will have any value in 2024? It is as good as the petitioner not getting anything at all," said M Kasimayan, a city-based RTI activist. Kasimayan accused the information commission of backdoor dealings with the public information officers to effectively kill the RTI Act by rejecting requests to safeguard govt officers.
Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-graft NGO, recently highlighted how each information commissioner at the headquarters was handling just 10 to 12 petitions a day, whereas judges in Madras high court disposed of 50 petitions every day. Arappor wrote to the state govt to fill two vacant information commissioner posts and increase the sanctioned posts by four. It got a reply from the human resources dept that filling the existing vacancies is under consideration, while increasing sanctioned strength comes under the purview of govt policy. "There is no transparency regarding the appointment of information commissioners either, as the SC directions on the selection of information commissioners have been ignored," said Jayaram Venkatesan, Arappor convener.
The information commission has not uploaded its annual reports for the last three years. A senior official said the annual report for 2022 will be uploaded this week.
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