Flagging a lack of diversity in the composition of Information Commissions, a new report has revealed that a mere 5% of them have been headed by women and none at present has a female leading it.
The report found the gender composition of commissions to be extremely skewed. Since the passage of the Right to Information Act in 2005, merely 9% of all information commissioners across the country have been women.
A total of 12 Information Commissions, which is around 41%, have never had a woman commissioner since they were constituted namely — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Telangana, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, says a report compiled by the ‘Satark Nagrik Sangathan’ (SNS) on the performance of the 29 Information Commissions set up under the RTI Act across the country.
Of the approximately 465 commissioners for whom background information was available, 58% were retired government officials, 14% were lawyers or former judges (11% were advocates or from the judicial service and 3% were retired judges), 11% commissioners had a background in journalism, 5% were academics and 4% were social activists or workers.
‘No orders passed’
The report goes on to note that several Information Commissions were found to be returning a very large number of cases without passing any orders. The Central Information Commission (CIC) and the State Information Commissions (SICs) of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Kerala returned 41% of the appeals or complaints received by them.
Many commissions have an extremely low rate of disposal per commissioner. For example, the SICs of West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh had low annual disposal rates per commissioner even though a large number of cases were pending before each Commission.
‘Non-transparent appointments’
The report also flags the issue of lack of timely and transparent appointments. Many Commissions are functioning at reduced capacity and without a chief, due to governments not filling vacancies in a timely manner. The SICs of Jharkhand, Telangana and Tripura are completely defunct as no new commissioners have been appointed upon the incumbents demitting office, it says.
The functioning of the Information Commissions was also found to be largely opaque. Only 8 of the 29 ICs stated that their hearings are open for members of the public to attend. Most stated that they do not have guidelines in place regarding open hearings while 6 ICs stated that they do not allow anyone other than the appellant/ complainant and respondent (or their representatives) to attend the proceedings of the Commission.
