18 years of RTI Act: Four state information commissions defunct, Jharkhand non-functional for over three years
information commissions are completely defunct and six other commissions are functioning without a chief, an annual independent study has found.
State information commissions in Jharkhand, Telangana, Mizoram and Tripura are non-functional since the serving commissioners have retired and no new appointments have been done. An independent annual study conducted by Satark Nagarik Sangathan on the eve of 18 th anniversary of Right to Information Act implementation has revealed that Jharkhand information commission has been defunct for over three years.
“The Chief Information Commissioner of the Jharkhand SIC, demitted office in November 2019. Subsequently the lone information commissioner was also made the acting Chief, although no such explicit provision exists under the RTI Act.
However, upon the completion of the tenure of the commissioner on May 8, 2020, the information commission has been without any commissioner, rendering it completely defunct,” the report observes.
Tripura information commission has been defunct for 27 months since July 2021, Telangana since February 2023 and Mizoram since June 2023.
Several other commissions are either working without a chief or at reduced capacity.
Six commissions – Central Information Commission (CIC), Manipur, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Punjab – are functioning without a chief. Seven others – Maharashtra, CIC, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka – are functioning at reduced capacity increasing the waiting time for an applicant seeking information.
The most shocking waiting time for an applicant continues to be for West Bengal state information commission where an applicant would need to wait for 24 years for an appeal filed on July 1.
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