NEW DELHI: Even as the Right to Information Act obligates each information commission to prepare a report on the implementation of the law every year which is to be laid before Parliament or the state legislature, it turns out that 21 out of 29 information commissions (ICs) (72%) have not published their annual report for 2019-20. In terms of putting out annual reports on the website of respective ICs, 7% of ICs have not made their latest annual report available on their website.
These findings are a part of a report card on the performance of ICs put together by voluntary organisation Satark Nagrik Sangathan and released to mark the 16th anniversary of the RTI Act on Tuesday. In a section on the transparency in the working of ICs, the report states that the performance of many ICs, in terms of publishing annual reports and putting them in the public domain, was dismal.
Only the Central Information Commission and state information commissions (SICs) of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Mizoram, Nagaland and Uttar Pradesh have published their annual report for 2020 and made them available on the official websites. The SICs of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have not published their annual report since the constitution of the respective SICs in 2017, following the bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Andhra. The SIC of Odisha has not published its annual reports since 2015-16. In the report based on RTI responses received, the SIC of Odisha has stated that the annual report for the period 2019-20 is under preparation.
The report also shows that over 2.55 lakh appeals and complaints were pending on June 30 this year in 26 information commissions. Based on the average monthly disposal rate and the pendency in commissions, the report puts out an analysis that shows that 13 commissions would take over one year to dispose of them. Odisha SIC would take as long as six years and eight months to dispose a matter filed on July 1 this year.