Report: Information Commissions Continue To Evade Real Accountability
As the RTI Act marks its 14th anniversary on Saturday, a report card analysing its performance showed that Information Commissions continue to evade real accountability to the people of the country by failing to disclose the legitimate information sought by them.
The ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India, 2018-19’ has revealed nearly 60% of State and Central Information Commissions, which are the courts of appeal under the Act, failed to provide complete information in 2018-19.
“It is alarming to note that in the fourteenth year of the implementation of the law, nearly 60% of the ICs failed to provide complete information within the stipulated timeframe in response to information requests filed to them,” the report said. The report, prepared by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and Centre for Equity Studies (CES), assessed all the 29 commissions set up the under the Act, for which 129 RTI applications were filed.
The SICs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were found to be the worst-performing – they provided only 21% of the information sought, followed by Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan SICs, which provided 46%, 47% and 55% of the information sought, respectively.
The best performers in this test were Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Telangana, Tripura and West Bengal SICs who provided 100% of answers sought.
Likewise, the websites of all the 29 ICs were also analysed to see if they were providing relevant and updated information. It revealed that the Bihar SIC has been non-functional for nearly 18 months.
Only 20 ICs provided public access to orders passed by them since January 2019.
The analysis also revealed that despite the statutory obligation, many of the commissions had not published their annual reports.
22 out of 29 ICs (76%) had not published their annual report for 2018. 26% of ICs did not provide their latest published annual report on the website.
Punjab SIC had not published any since 2012 while Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had not published annual reports since the constitution of the respective SICs in 2017, after the bifurcation of the states, the report said.
The report also examines the performance of all 29 commissions in India in terms of the number of appeals and complaints registered and disposed by them, number of pending cases, estimated waiting time for the disposal of an appeal/complaint, frequency of violations penalised by commissions and transparency in their working.
The full report can be accessed here.
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“It is alarming to note that in the fourteenth year of the implementation of the law, nearly 60% of the ICs failed to provide complete information within the stipulated timeframe in response to information requests filed to them,” the report said. The report, prepared by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and Centre for Equity Studies (CES), assessed all the 29 commissions set up the under the Act, for which 129 RTI applications were filed.
The SICs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were found to be the worst-performing – they provided only 21% of the information sought, followed by Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan SICs, which provided 46%, 47% and 55% of the information sought, respectively.
The best performers in this test were Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Telangana, Tripura and West Bengal SICs who provided 100% of answers sought.
Likewise, the websites of all the 29 ICs were also analysed to see if they were providing relevant and updated information. It revealed that the Bihar SIC has been non-functional for nearly 18 months.
Only 20 ICs provided public access to orders passed by them since January 2019.
The analysis also revealed that despite the statutory obligation, many of the commissions had not published their annual reports.
22 out of 29 ICs (76%) had not published their annual report for 2018. 26% of ICs did not provide their latest published annual report on the website.
Punjab SIC had not published any since 2012 while Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had not published annual reports since the constitution of the respective SICs in 2017, after the bifurcation of the states, the report said.
The report also examines the performance of all 29 commissions in India in terms of the number of appeals and complaints registered and disposed by them, number of pending cases, estimated waiting time for the disposal of an appeal/complaint, frequency of violations penalised by commissions and transparency in their working.
The full report can be accessed here.
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