Chennai: Citing mounting pendency of cases involving RTI appeals and disputes due to manpower shortage, the Central Information Commission has requested the Centre to appoint more Information Commissioners, a top official said on Friday.
"We have requested the Government of India to appoint more Information Commissioners. We are also trying to evolve methods by which we can increase the number of disposals," Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra told reporters here on the sidelines of a workshop on RTI Act.
Five posts of Information Commissioners were still vacant and "we need much more manpower", he said. The CIC was having only 160 employees, and it was "not a adequate, sufficient number," he said, adding due to this cases were taking eight to 10 months to come up, against ideal time of three months. "If it is more than three months, in our opinion, it is pointless."
He said every month CIC was receiving over 2,300 cases, while it was clearing only 1,800, resulting in backlog. Mishra said over 23,000 cases were pending with the CIC alone besides those before various state information commissions. He also said the CIC had started posting details about the number of pending cases at the end of every month on its website. "We have already started. Other Commissioners will also be doing so."
Clearing concerns that the RTI Act was being misused, he said, "My personal experience in the last three years in the Central Information Commission is that the instances of misuse of RTI act is absolutely infinitely small.. There were overwhelmingly large number of cases with genuine reasons."
PTI