Chennai: The number of pending RTI petitions and appeals by the Tamil Nadu Information Commission has shrunk in the last six months compared to last year, despite the panel working with its full complement of nine commissioners.According to the latest data available, the commission said it disposed of 14,243 appeals till June 30 this year, but the official website has only 10,422 orders uploaded for the period so far. Nearly 4,000 orders remain unuploaded, further depriving appellants of the rightful information and giving more leverage to govt servants to delay the same citing the lack of official order.However, during the corresponding period last year, the commission had disposed of 17,073 appeals and uploaded the orders, though there were only seven information commissioners in the panel last year. In Feb this year, the state govt appointed retired IAS official Atulya Misra and retired IPS officer Abhay Kumar Singh as information commissioners, taking the count to nine to speed up the disposal of pending appeals.
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Yet the commission has disposed of just 1,377 appeals, while the number for last year was 3,065. The number further dwindled to just 887, while 2,934 appeals were disposed of in June last year. The three commissioners, including the chief commissioner, retired on June 28, and the state govt has formed a search committee under the chairmanship of retired Madras high court judge R S Ramanathan to select suitable persons to fill the vacancies.The interim chief commissioner Atulya Misra was not available for comment. However, sources in the commission said some petitions could have been batched together, or some orders would await approval of respective commissioners for uploading after corrections.‘Nalvinai’ Viswaraju, an RTI activist and founder of Ten Rupee Movement, said the slowdown in disposal is due to more time taken to hear petitions. “Usually, the commission would intimate the PIO concerned after it receives an appeal and the correct information would be provided even before the actual hearing of the petition. That practice is no longer in vogue. Also, few cases are taken up for hearing on a daily basis, resulting in accumulation of appeals,” he said.
