RTI Report Card Highlights the presence of retired Govt officers as Information Commissioners

New Delhi: A ‘Report Card’ on the work of Information Commissions Right to information act It shows that 57% of about 510 commissioners for whom background information was available was retired government officials.
About 15% Information commissioner The lawyer or former judge was (11% of the advocates or from judicial service and 4% were retired judges), 12% of the commissioner had a background in journalism, 5% academics (teachers, professors) and 4% were social workers or workers.
The report stated that despite the RTI Act, commissioners can be appointed from diverse backgrounds and regions – it is being repeated by the Supreme Court in its February 2019 judgment – evaluation found that most of the information commissioners have been appointed from the retired government.
The report stated, “Of the 148 Chief Information Commissioners for whom data was obtained, a heavy 85% of the retired government servants were. 9% had a background in the law (4% former judge and 5% lawyer or judicial officer),” reported in the report.
This data is part of the voluntary organization Vigilant citizen organizationReport Card of Information Commissions, 2023-24 ‘. It looks at the performance of all 29 information commissions in the country for a period till June 2024 by July 2023, depending on the reactions received from the commissions to their RTI questions.
The report card was brought out every year, yet again is a worrying concern because the gender composition of the commissions is very oblique. Since the passage of the RTI Act in 2005, only 9% of all the information commissioners across the country have been women. Nine ICS had never done a woman commissioner because they were formed. These states include Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Telangana, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
Among the Chief Information Commissioners, gender equality is worse, with only 5% of the major women. On October 12, 2024, no information commissions were led under the leadership of a woman.
Meanwhile, data suggests that the copy of the copy of the copy of the copy of the appeal and complaints using data for the period from July 2023 to June 2024 shows a wide variation in the commissions. For example, Maharashtra Information Commission had the highest annual average settlement rate of 13,062 appeals, per commissioner and SIC of Andhra Pradesh had an annual average settlement rate of 1,141 cases per commissioner per commissioner – each commissioner was settling less effectively than five cases per day – even though more than 10,000 cases were pending.
The report also focuses on how many ICs were found to return a large number of cases without passing any order. For example, the Central Information Commission returned around 14,000 appeals/complaints, while it registered 19,347 during the period under the review.
2,31,417 appeals and complaints were filed by 27 Information Commissions between July 1, 2023 and 30 June 2024. During the same period, 2,25,929 cases were dealt with by 28 commissions. On June 30, 2024, the number of pending appeal and complaints in 29 Information Commissions was 4,05,509.