It is not just the overburdened judiciary that is suffocating under pendancy. The Central Information Commission also seems to be crumbling due to the sheer number of second appeals piling up. A recent study by an activist on the performance of the CIC shows that besides increasing workload, applications about certain public authorities are also heaping up.
As per the study conducted by Delhi-based RTI activist Lokesh Batra, at the start of last year, 22,804 second appeals were pending. This jumped to 36,108 by year-end. The rise in pendancy was 13,304, that is, a cumulative leap of 59%.
These second appeals deal with a total of 718 public authorities. Of these, 80 percent were with 78 public authorities. These included the Prime Minister's Office, the HRD, defence and coal ministries, and many others. The maximum jump was seen in the number of second appeals with the Indian Air Force. The authority had a total of 21,475 cases pending by the end of 2014. The second highest number is 2,600, pending with the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan.
Appeals pending at the bench of the chief central information commissioner, a post that lies vacant in the absence of an additional charge, saw the biggest jump. From 1,992 at the beginning of 2014, it had added 9,262 appeals, totting up to 11,254 cases by year-end. In other words, pendancy bounded by 465%.
Besides not having any administrative head, the CIC also wants three commissioners to attain its intended strength. Not long ago, dna had highlighted that the pace of clearing second appeals at the CIC was below the average set by the commission.
The government, after sitting on the appointment of the chief commissioner, came out with a circular that aspirants could apply for the post in October, 2014. It is yet to sift through the 203 applications it got and appoint someone.
The same story tells itself in the case of the appointment of the three information commissioners . A circular was put out in February to appoint commissioners. A search committee in April short-listed six names for two of the posts . In July, it sought more applications. But so far, the vacancies persist.
"The problem is non-appointment and slow clearing of appeals by the commissioners. What I do not understand is that when the government can appoint CBI and IB heads within days, what takes it so long to appoint CIC and CVC heads who bring in transparency in the work of the government," said Batra.
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