Modi is Gutting RTI
Updated: November 25, 2014 03:26 IST
Pendency killing RTI, say activists
The Hindu
Former Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has long said that rising pendency is killing the landmark Act.
The post of Chief Information Commissioner has been
vacant since August 22 when Rajiv Mathur retired. The Chief Information
Commissioner is to be appointed by the President on the recommendation
of a three-member committee headed by the Prime Minister, that includes
the Leader of the Opposition and a Union Cabinet Minister to be
nominated by the Prime Minister.
“All that it needed
was for the meeting to be called and appointment made,” Nikhil Dey of
the National Campaign for the People’s Right To Information said. “The
appointment was not held up by the lack of a Leader of the Opposition,
because the RTI Act clearly states that the leader of the single largest
opposition is also acceptable. If transparency had mattered to the
government, they would have made the appointment a priority,” he said.
Former
Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has long said that
rising pendency is killing the landmark Act. “When I was in the CIC, we
decided that we would dispose of a minimum of 3,200 cases per year. I
myself was doing 5,000 cases a year and 6,000 in my last year. Yet this
norm is being flouted, and Information Commissioners are working less
and less, and pendency is piling up,” he said.
Reflecting
recent news developments, there has been a big rise in the number of
RTI appeals against the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Human
Resource Development, the University Grants Commission, the Central
Board of Secondary Education and the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan. Over a
third of cases involve appeals against the Ministry of Defence alone.
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