Information for all: Info commisisoner plans mass clearance of RTI appeals

The New Year will be bringing good news for RTI applicants in Mumbai. With the rising number of second appeals and the complaints that have reached 22,127 in Maharashtra as on November, the state information commission has decided to have mass clearance of appeals.

Second appeals are applications filed with the information commission when an applicant does not receive information or gets inadequate information from the public information officer (PIO) and the first appellate authority (FAA).

To the content of applicants who have been waiting the longest, appeals filed in 2008 will be taken up first. According to the acting state chief information commissioner, Vijay Kuvalekar, "Around 600 appeals will be heard chronologically from 2008 onwards. We intend to clear them on January 4, 5 and 6. The idea to take up this program was to clear the appeals and complaints. Every month with increasing awareness 2,500 appeals are filed. Due to less number of commissioners, and three doubling up for the vacant posts, the appeals are only increasing. It was with this reason we thought of having the mass clearance. Even if 40% are disposed off, it will give relief to applicants."

The program will be conducted under the name of 'Special Appeal Disposal Program'. Hearings will be held at different timings at the hall in RA Poddar, Medical College on Dr. Annie Beasant Road, Worli.

As per the program, the applicant and PIO will be made to sit across each other and they will decide on the information that is needed. If the matter is resolved, the commissioner will dispose of the appeal. If not, a form will then be filled by applicant and PIO and applicant will seek punishment for the PIO.

At present, Mumbai headquarters account for most number of second appeals with 4,661 appeals. This is followed by 3,694 appeals in the Pune region, which belongs to Kuvalekar.

Why such high frequency? In his defence, Kuvalekar states, "Around 1,000 appeals got added to the Pune division when the papers were sorted out for the second appeal hearing." According to Kuvalekar, when initiative for mass clearance started, to ensure that it is chronologically done, the commission surfed through the stack of papers that are there. "A thousand cases got added in that. Due to constantly moving from Pune to Mumbai for the past four months, hearing has suffered and has lead to addition of the pendency," added Kuvalekar.

While Kuvalekar may be doing his bit to clear the pendency, there are some against it. Krishnaraj Rao, an activist said, "The RTI Act does not give any provisions for a commissioner to have such a hearing." To this Kuvalekar states that he has legal opinion from the advocate general of Maharashtra. Rao, however, differs on the opinion. "It cannot still give him the power as the commissioner derives all his powers from the Act," he said.

While mass hearing may be a one-time phenomenon, the RTI Act and people seem to be on the losing side. As per Kuvalekar's own admission, if the post of information commissioners and other staff are not filled, the commission will fail. At present there is a vacancy for 50 officers in the department, the most crucial being that of stenos who type the orders.

Stenos who are crucial for typing out the order are half in strength as compared to the sanctioned post. "Post santioned are two for headquarters and state but only one steno is working at each place. Despite hearing, around 60 orders are needed to be sent as they are not typed. And once they are not sent, we cannot count them as disposed," said Kuvalekar. According to Kuvalekar, the need now is of twice the sanctioned post. "As the Act is becoming popular, more and more people are filing applications and now the need is of four stenos," said Kuvalekar.

Activists have slammed the Maharashtra Chief Minister for not filling up the posts of commissioner and steno. "The chief minister is to be blamed for the death of the RTI Act. There was no reason why they did not go ahead with the precedence of making the senior most commissioner the state chief," said Bhaskar Prabhu, another RTI activist.

Another set of activist are planning to move court against the commissioner's vacancies. "We are gathering details and as soon as the petition is ready, we will most likely be filing a case in January," said Narayan Varma of PCGT, an organization that works to facilitate use of RTI Act.