The Pune bench of the State Information Commissioner (SIC) has been witnessing a deluge of second appeals. A majority of these appeals, interestingly, have been filed by only a handful of people.
Since the establishment of the Pune bench of the SIC in February 2007, 938 second appeals have been filed by 97 individuals.
RTI activists claim this habit of filing multiple appeals is a major cause for the rise in pendency of SIC benches. The Pune bench at present has a pendency of over 2,000 appeals.
The second appeals in question are filed with the SIC under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005. These appeals are filed by applicants in case of non-satisfactory resolution of the first appeals with the appellate authorities. The appeals are heard by the SIC, who gives his decisions. In Pune, this is done by Vijay Kuvalekar.
While there is a 45-day time-frame for the disposal of first appeals, there is no time-frame for disposal of second appeals by information commissioners. Often in Pune, applicants have to wait for a year before their case comes up for hearing before the SIC.
Commenting on this trend, RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar said, “I have personally scrutinised some of the appeals and have found a majority of them to be beyond the scope of the RTI. The users are appealing for orders which do not come under the gambit of the RTI.”
Kumbhar also talked of a group of people, who file second appeals to arm-twist government officers. “The RTI Act has no provision for limiting the number of second appeals, but I suggest we start a social boycott of such people. Because of them, real users of RTI are at a loss,” he added.
Major General (rtd) SCN Jatar, pointed to the lethargy on the part of the government at large in addressing this problem. “No amendment is required of the Act in order to stop the avalanche of second appeals. A formation of simple rules can do the same. Lack of political will on the part of the government and SICs is to be blamed for this trend,” he said.
