Jul 08 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
66,000 RTI complaints pending in 6 info panels
Anahita Mukherji
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The aam aadmi’s favourite law, the Right to Information Act, turns nine this year.Information commissions were set up to decide on complaints and appeals filed by people against government authorities for blocking access to information. How have they performed? At present, over 66,000 complaints and appeals are pending at six information commissions.
Maharashtra tops the list with 34,158, followed by the Central Information Commission (CIC; Delhi). Kerala, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir are next. The states are the only ones to provide pendency figures besides Sikkim and Tripura, which showed no pendency.
The findings are by the nonprofit Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). The data raises questions about the composition of the commissions.
While much has been said about the need for more women in parliament, their representation
in the commissions is abysmal.Goa is the only state whose commission is headed by a woman.
A woman information commissioner in Tripura is serving as the acting chief information commissioner. Only 11 of 93 information commissioners in India were women as of May 2014.
Ironically, there are transparency issues as well. A former direc
tor of the Intelligence Bureau now heads the CIC, the country's apex decision making body on RTI appeals. IB is one of the few organizations exempt from providing information under RTI, except in cases of corruption and human rights violation.“The problem with a former IB director heading the CIC is that such an individual has no experience of embedding transparency in administration. The RTI is pathbreaking because it aims to replace a regime of secrecy with one of transparency . But IB has deliberately been kept out of RTI purview.
Will a person with a background in IB be adequately able to champion transparency?“ asks RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, who headed CHRI research on information commissions. That the vast majority of information commissioners are retired civil servants raises fears of the information commissions turning into a geriatric bureaucratic ward; 69% of CICs are retired IAS officers.
For the full report, log on to http://www.timesofindia.com 14% VACANT POSTS Maharashtra tops the list of pending complaints/ appeal with 34,158 90% of information commissions continue to be headed by retired civil servants, Jharkhand being the lone exception, whose commission is headed by a retired HC judge Goa is the only state with a woman chief information commissioner 14% of posts of info comissioners lying vacant
Maharashtra tops the list with 34,158, followed by the Central Information Commission (CIC; Delhi). Kerala, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir are next. The states are the only ones to provide pendency figures besides Sikkim and Tripura, which showed no pendency.
The findings are by the nonprofit Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). The data raises questions about the composition of the commissions.
While much has been said about the need for more women in parliament, their representation
in the commissions is abysmal.Goa is the only state whose commission is headed by a woman.
A woman information commissioner in Tripura is serving as the acting chief information commissioner. Only 11 of 93 information commissioners in India were women as of May 2014.
Ironically, there are transparency issues as well. A former direc
tor of the Intelligence Bureau now heads the CIC, the country's apex decision making body on RTI appeals. IB is one of the few organizations exempt from providing information under RTI, except in cases of corruption and human rights violation.“The problem with a former IB director heading the CIC is that such an individual has no experience of embedding transparency in administration. The RTI is pathbreaking because it aims to replace a regime of secrecy with one of transparency . But IB has deliberately been kept out of RTI purview.
Will a person with a background in IB be adequately able to champion transparency?“ asks RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, who headed CHRI research on information commissions. That the vast majority of information commissioners are retired civil servants raises fears of the information commissions turning into a geriatric bureaucratic ward; 69% of CICs are retired IAS officers.
For the full report, log on to http://www.timesofindia.com 14% VACANT POSTS Maharashtra tops the list of pending complaints/ appeal with 34,158 90% of information commissions continue to be headed by retired civil servants, Jharkhand being the lone exception, whose commission is headed by a retired HC judge Goa is the only state with a woman chief information commissioner 14% of posts of info comissioners lying vacant
