[HumJanenge] PENDING AT CIC - NEED TO FILE RTI/ SEND LETTER FOR FILLING UP THE 5 ICs POSTS

20,000 pending cases take sting out of RTI

Himanshi Dhawan TNN

New Delhi: The government may be making unwelcome noises to amend the RTI Act, but the Central Information Commission (CIC) is battling another enemy. The number of pending cases at the information watchdog has risen above 20,000, rendering the Commission's work useless. The CIC had about 15,000 pending cases in 2010, and has added over 5,000 so far this year. 

    An RTI appeal remains pending for an average of eight-nine months, and the tardiness significantly reduces the importance of the information. 

    Conceding the growing problem at hand, chief information commissioner Satyananda Mishra said, "We have crossed a pendency of over 20,000 cases. This is a huge inconvenience for information seekers." Earlier, the waiting time was six months that has now stretched to an average of eightnine months. 

    Sources say the problem is threefold: Lack of adequate number of commissioners coupled with the increasing number of RTI appeals and complaints and the efficiency of each commissioner. The CIC is functioning at half its strength. It has six commissioners as opposed to a sanctioned strength of 11, with each commissioner dispensing about 3,000 cases annually, which work out to less than nine a day. Besides, the cases that were scheduled to be heard by three commissioners, who retired last year, had to be re-allocated to incumbent commissioners.

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In view of the above, it is desirable that some activists should file RTI and send letters to DoPT demanding filling up the five vacant posts of ICs for a long rather than discussing unproducting issue.

It seems that this is not in the list of priority work of DoPT/ Govt.  I am going to file one RTI to know the present status about filling the vacant posts.