No info flowing to citizens, all trying to kill RTI Act: SC

NEW DELHI: SC Tuesday expressed concern over continued vacancies in state and central information commissions , saying the Right to Information Act can't be made redundant by keeping the bodies dysfunctional, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.

Arguing for petitioner Anjali Bhardwaj, advocate Prashant Bhushan painted a grim picture of information commissions in the country and said, "Instead of implementing SC's Feb 2019 judgment, which laid down detailed timelines and transparent processes for appointment of chief information commissioners and information commissioners, the vacancy status has worsened."

The Centre and states have taken a regressive approach towards implementation of the RTI Act. Because of huge vacancies in the information commissions, no information from departments is flowing to the citizens. Everyone is trying to kill the RTI Act as no govt wants to give out information to the citizens," he said.

Taking objections to the Centre's lethargic approach in completing the selection process for appointment of information commissioners to Central Information Commission (CIC) which commenced in Aug last year, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N K Singh said, "Union govt must tell us in two weeks the outer limit for filling the vacancies. What is the use of creating an institution under a legislation and not keeping it functional?"

The bench was faced with a peculiar position in Jharkhand, where state information commission (SIC) has been non-functional for the last four years. It was informed selections could not be made because no leader of opposition, who is a member of the selection panel for SIC, has been notified after the Nov assembly polls. The bench ordered the largest party in opposition, which is BJP, to nominate one of its MLAs for inclusion in the selection panel and directed the state to appoint chief information commissioner and six information commissioners within seven weeks.

Laying down the timeline for compliance, the bench directed all other states to publish a list of applicants for the posts of CICs and ICs within one week, composition of search committee along with selection criteria a week thereafter, completion of interviews in next six weeks, and make appointments in the subsequent two weeks.

SC asked chief secretaries of all states to file compliance reports after eight weeks and asked them to inform the level of pendency before information commissions.