the Supreme Court lamented on Monday after finding that the Central Information Commission and state ICs were plagued with vacancies and were unable to decide public complaints.Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner social activist Anjali Bhardwaj, informed a bench comprising CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that of the 11 posts of information commissioners in the CIC, seven were vacant and the incumbent ICs were scheduled to retire in November.
He said state information commissions were in worse shape. The Jharkhand state information commission had stopped functioning since May 2020 as all 11 posts of ICs were vacant. All posts of ICs in Telangana SIC fell vacant in February and Tripura in July 2021, he said.The bench asked additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati to instruct the Union government to collate information relating to all state ICs with regard to sanctioned posts of ICs, number of vacancies, vacancies anticipated by March 31 next year and number of complaints and appeals under RTI Act pending before these bodies. It sought a report from the Centre in three weeks.
The SC also directed the Centre and states to take immediate steps to notify vacancies and initiate the process for filling them up. "States, by failing to fill up vacancies in information commissions, have rendered the RTI Act a dead letter law," it said.
The RTI Act came into force on June 15, 2005, and was intended "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto".
Bhardwaj informed the court that Maharashtra SIC was without a chief and functioning with only four commissioners even though over 115,000 appeals/complaints were pending. She said Jharkhand SIC was completely defunct since May 2020 and no appeals/complaints were being registered or disposed of for the last three years.
Tripura SIC was defunct since July 2021 and Telangana SIC since February 2023 even though more than 10,000 appeals/complaints were pending, Bhardwaj said. Karnataka SIC was functioning with five commissioners and six posts were lying vacant. More than 40,000 appeals/complaints were pending before the commission, she added.
The West Bengal SIC was functioning with three commissioners with around 12,000 appeals/complaints pending. Odisha SIC was functioning with three commissioners while more than 16,000 appeals/complaints were pending. Bihar SIC was functioning with two commissioners while more than 8,000 appeals/complaints were pending, Bhardwaj said.
