Official apathy holds up RTI pleas disposal

As per the official data, the total number of appeals and complaints received by the commission is 65,028, and the number of disposed cases is 57,270, since its inception in 2006

Hyderabad: With inordinate delay in disposal of the RTI applications, the appellants continue to spend anxious moments for months together. They blame the laxity on the part of the Commissioners, some of whom are spending less than 10 days in a month for hearing the cases.

As per the official data, the total number of appeals and complaints received by the commission is 65,028, while the number of disposed cases is 57,270, since its inception in 2006. The number of pending cases as on August 14 remains at 7,758. During the last 124 working days there are six Information Commissioners, who spent less than 60 days for hearings.

Some of the RTI activists, facing raw deal, point out that the trend has been continuing for more than two years. While the Central Information Commission is swift in penalising the PIOs (Public Information Officer), the State Information Commission has rare instances where any official has been penalised for delay.

“The State commissioners, more often than not, are sympathetic towards the erring officials and refuse to penalise them though it is clearly established that the official had even threatened the appellant,” says RTI activist Shyam Sundar. The activists also allege lack of transparency on the part of some Commissioners, when sought information during the process.

“I received the order copy after 3-months and the date printed on it was that of hearing. On another occasion, I was declared absent, when I was present for hearing, but the case was not taken up due to absence of official,” says Vinod Thota, AP convener, Association of Unified Activists.

In the information available on the website from April to August, P Vijay Babu, one of the Information Commissioners spent 27 days out of 124 working days for hearing. Similarly V Venkateshwarlu (36 days), S Imtiyaz Ahmed (40 days), M Ratan (43 days), M V Nirmala (49 days), C Madhukar Raj (57 days), Lam Tantiya Kumari (60 days) and S P Reddy (86 days) undertook hearing.

The RTI activists argue there is no provision in the RTI Act, 2005 for inspection by Information Commissioners, but they are going on tours for conducting inspections, which is actually the duty of the district collectors. The Commission should call for records from the collectors and monitor implementation of the Act.

“Until and unless RTI Act is implemented in letter and spirit and cases are taken regularly for hearing there will be no pendency. This would avert hardship for appellants,” says Sadiq Hussain, an RTI campaigner.

There has been growing disquiet amongst the activists, some of whom allegedly faced threats, while others felt insulted in front of PIOs. Earlier there were interactive meetings through video conferencing, with the NGOs and the RTI activists, which were stopped during the recent years.

“Some of the Commissioners are declaring disposal, when the case actually should be called for second appeal. If this continues, people will lose faith in the RTI Act,” says Srinivas Goud, secretary, Social & RTI groups Confederation. Acknowledging that the hearings were not being taken up on daily basis, the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), S Prabhakar Reddy invited any specific complaints from the appellants against any particular Commissioner.

He pointed out that some of the cases took not months but years for disposing. “We recently decided the fate of 9 to 10 cases pending for years. Unless there is complaint, we cannot take action,” he said. The CIC ruled out that the entire Commission is lax. Citing an example of a Court, he said that if there are several judges working in the court who are not working, no one can say that entire Court is not functioning.

By:Md Nizamuddin