New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central and State governments to fill up vacancies in the Information Commission saying that delay in appointments would defeat the very purpose of the RTI Act. A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said the Right to Information Act of 2005 will become a dead letter while expressing concern over the vacancies after taking note of the submissions by advocate Prashant Bhushan.
The bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, asked the Centre's counsel to prepare a chart on the number of vacancies and number of appeals/complaints in all the Commissions. Bhushan, who was representing RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj, said the State Information Commissions (SICs) in states like Jharkhand, Tripura and Telangana have become defunct as there were no serving information commissioners.
The apex court was informed that the Karnataka SIC is functioning with five commissioners and six posts lying vacant, and more than 40,000 appeals/complaints are pending before the Commission. Bhushan stressed that despite the 2019 judgment of the apex court, the Centre and several states have failed to fill the vacancies in the Information Commission. He said this is leading to a large number of pending cases and long delays in the disposal of appeals and complaints.
Noting Bhushan’s submissions, the bench said the lawyer has submitted a chart of huge vacancies, and this would defeat the underlying spirit and express orders of this court. The bench asked additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati to assist the bench in dealing with the matter directed all the states to take steps to fill posts (in SICs) and scheduled the matter for further hearing after three weeks.
The apex court was informed that the Central Information Commission (CIC) is currently functioning without a chief and only four commissioners are working, all of whom are set to finish their tenure by November 6, 2023, following which the CIC will become defunct.
The apex court was also informed that Maharashtra SIC is without a chief and functioning with only four commissioners even though more than 1,15,000 appeals/complaints are pending, and in Jharkhand, the SIC has been completely defunct since May 2020.
It was argued before the apex court that, in the case of Jharkhand SIC, no appeals/complaints have been registered or disposed of for the last three years. And, the West Bengal SIC is left with three commissioners with around 12,000 appeals/complaints pending.
