Telangana: 10 per cent of RTI pleas being disposed

Hyderabad: A mere 10 per cent of the fresh RTI applications received every month were being disposed of by the Right to Information Commissioner in TS.

One lucky RTI application that was processed revealed that the Right to Information Commission was sitting on 8,000 applications till the end of October 2017.

While Andhra Pradesh was worse of where the percentage of disposal was around 5 per cent, both the Telugu states said there was staff shortage to oversee the RTI operations.

When the RTI provisions provided for the appointment of 10 commissioners, TS had two, of which one was the chairman, and AP had none. When the Information Commission was bifurcated, both the governments took no action to fill the vacancies.

Following this, a PIL was filed in the High Court requesting for orders to constitute the commission and a deadline of September 21, 2017, was fixed. The Telangana government appointed two members, while AP was yet to take any action. As a result, the number of applications pending was high.

The applications mainly concerned cases of corruption in revenue, municipal administration, home and transport departments. Matters were taken to the commission as departments were unwilling to disclose information.

The RTI found that the rate of disposal of appeals was extremely low. In October, the number of cases received by TS – IC was 595 of which 81 were disposed and the total pending cases amounted to 7,513.

At this rate of disposal, the commission might not be in a position to take up fresh appeals. There was an immediate necessity to intervene and appoint more information commissioners to match the number of officials prior to the expiry of the term of the earlier information commissioner, it is being argued.

When the issue was raised with the IC, an officer said, “There is a limitation. There are two commissioners and each has his/her own restraints. It is a difficult task to dispose of a high number on a daily basis. In fact, out of the pending cases, we have been able to clear 430 appeals in November- December. By all means, the IC is trying to clear 200 appeals a month, beyond that we cannot be doing much unless more commissioners are appointed.”

RISK OF LOSS OF FACE
Information obtained by an RTI application to Right to Information Commission revealed:

• Number of cases pending in the commission since October 2017 – 7513 (will exceed if the current figures of November & December are added)
• While the RTI act says, ‘Any appeal preferred by Commission should be disposed of in two or three months otherwise people will lose confidence on the effectiveness of the commission.
• The reason for piling up of appeals application is due to sufficient number of information commissioners

NO INFO COMMISSIONER IN AP 

• The High Court had passed orders (PIL- 164/2017) directing government of Telangana and AP to constitute Information Commission and appoint a chief within six weeks (order passed before September 2017)
• In September, TS government constituted a state information commission
• However, Andhra Pradesh has no IC in place, yet. The IC has not revealed the pending cases of appeals.