Times of India: Delhi: Saturday, March 24, 2018.
Twelve years
after the RTI Act came into being, vacancies in the information commissions
continues to hamper the functioning of the bodies. A study of vacancies shows
that 25 percent of positions for information commissioners in the state
information commissions remain empty.
According to
a study of annual reports and websites of the state information commissions
(SIC) by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), of the 146 posts, 109
are vacant. “In 2015, against 142 posts created 111 Information Commissioners
(including Chief Information Commissioners) were working across the country,”
says the report by CHRI.
As per
sections 12(2) and 15(2) of the Central RTI Act, Information Commissions
comprising of one Chief Information Commissioner and a maximum of ten
Information Commissioners at the Central and State level, respectively is
permitted.
By 2018, a
total of 153 posts of Information Commissioners (including the Chief
Information Commissioners) had been created across the country (including the
JKSIC).
Adds the CHRI
report, “At the time of writing this report there are 146 posts of Chief Information
Commissioners and Information Commissioners created across the country of which
more than 25 percent of the posts (Chief ICs and ICs) are lying vacant.”
In July 2015,
the vacancy figure was much lower at 20 percent. “In March 2018, the total number
of Information Commissioners serving across the country is 109 - down from 111
in 2015. In 2014 when we published the Rapid Study Report 2.0 there were 120
ICs serving across the country. Yet fewer ICs are serving across the country in
2018 despite the creation of more posts,” the report goes on to state.
Haryana has
the full complement of ICs (1+10) followed by Karnataka, Punjab and Uttar
Pradesh (9 each) with the Central Information Commission, Maharashtra and Tamil
Nadu (7 each) taking third place.
Together,
these seven Information Commissions account for almost half the number (47
percent) of serving Information Commissioners across the country. Six of these
Information Commissions are saddled with 72 percent of the total number, notes
the CHRI report.
The SICs of
Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tripura have one member each.
Maharashtra
has an acting State Chief Information Commissioner (SCIC) since mid-2017. A
regular SCIC has not been appointed despite more than eight months having
passed since the retirement of the previous incumbent. Gujarat SIC does not
have an SCIC since mid-January, 2018.