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RTI violations go unpunished, says study
Why in news?
- “Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India” prepared by Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the Centre for Equity Studies, highlighted that RTI violations go unpunished.
More in news
- Time period of study: January 2018 to March 2019 for 22 commissions which disposed of almost 1.17 lakh cases in this time period.
- Findings of the Report
(1) Failure to impose penalties: State and Central Information Commissions, which are the courts of appeal under the RTI Act failed to impose penalties in about 97% of the cases where violations took place in 2018-19.
(2) Lax implementation of Section 20 of RTI act:
(a) Section 20 of the RTI Act: Where a monetary penalty is imposed, the Infomation Commssion can also recommend disciplinary action against the PIO under the applicable service rules.
(b) 59% of cases record one or more of the violations listed in section 20 of the RTI Act, it can be estimated that penalties should have been imposed on 68,900 cases. But they were imposed only in 2,091 cases i.e approx 3% of cases where violations took place.
(3) Pending Cases:
(a) 18 lakh cases were pending with Commisisons in March 2019, in comparison with 1.85 lakh a year earlier.
(b) Less than 2% cases disposed
(4) Vacancies: 4 out of 11 CIC posts are vacant.
(5) Culture of Impunity:
(a) The commisions in only 10 states invoked the power to recommend disciplinary action against officials for persisitent violations.
(b) This detroys the basic framework of incentives and disincentives built into the RTI law which promotes a culture of impunity and exasperates applicants who seek information at a high cost and often against great odd.
Sources
The Hindu