The Right to Information law has a large sense of ownership from Indians for it to be rolled back wholesale. But what can’t be done upfront may be happening by stealth.

Unconcerned that complaints and appeals are piling up one on top of the other the government has not found time to appoint a head for at the Central Information Commission for the past 5 months. Lokesh Batra, an RTI activist estimates there are over 36,000 cases pending at the Central Commission alone with a 47 per cent increase since last August. While the government can appoint up to 10 information commissioners, even faced with the mounting arears the numbers in harness are just seven.

State commissions don’t fare much better. Currently in Jharkhand there is only one acting chief information commissioner and the remaining nine posts are lying vacant leading to huge pendency rate within the commission. This is eventually killing the interest among people to file an RTI application. Even where all posts are filled cases mount up and disposal rates are nothing to shout about. 

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative&’s annual survey for 2014 on India&’s Information Commission&’s and the use of RTI law found that most state commissions now don’t bother to put their pendency figures in the public domain – which is a convenient way of avoiding the inevitable questions about organisation, diligence and efficiency that must follow.  

Disturbingly, some who approach commissions are coming away mortified and angry at the treatment they receive and talk of being rebuked for their temerity in asking for information or being intimidated for perceived slights to the commission – even to the extent of having the police being brought down upon them. 

The latest reported low came, when a Chennai RTI activist was booked under IPC Sections 353 (preventing a government servant from discharging his duty), 294 (b) (obscenity) and 506 (1) (criminal intimidation) at the instance of the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission for asking a chair to sit on when appearing before a two bench commission. Perhaps things got heated over expected comfort levels or the need for two way respect. Even if there were a rule about what position complaints must assume before they can be heard, it is unclear why a standing complainant is more respectful or cogent in his complaint than a sitting one or perhaps a face down prone one.

Delays and arrears are aggravated by what, after nine years of the enactment, can only be termed as wilful defiance by both the Centre and state government departments at all levels. Their refusal to comply with a statutory requirement that they put out a minimum 17 points of information proactively means that people have to constantly go on asking for information that should in any case have been out there for them to see.  This was supposed to be done within 120 days of the law coming on to the books. Since the law lacks any penalty or consequence for not putting information out proactively just the weight of requests may defeat the central purpose of the law. The Department of Personnel and Training the nodal ministry has, in consultation with civil society formulated guidelines for putting out information under Section 4(1) (b). But there have been no serious takers. A survey by RAAG and CES found that an estimated four million RTI applications were filed between 2011 and 2012. If this number increases by just 1 per cent the current infrastructure will collapse.

Poor Record Management is another hindrance to information giving. Seekers are often discouraged from going further when faced with pretexts like “file missing” or the “file not traceable”. Here though, the Central Information Commission has dealt with this syndrome quite strongly in recent times by penalising government officials and ruled that unless the record is destroyed as per the prescribed rules it would be considered a breach of Public Records Act, 1993. 

Besides poor processes and difficult redress where seeking information can be discouraging, on the ground it can be downright dangerous. It is in the public domain that nationwide 251 people have been attacked, murdered or intimidated because they dared to use the RTI Act. This is the most severe way that one can discourage an applicant to file RTI. Each attack creates a chill and increases the sense of fear and threat that damages not only the human being but the spirit of democracy at large. 

The writer works with Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.