With no CIC, RTI appeals pile up

With no chief information commissioner since August, a total of 10,290 appeals were pending before the Central Information Commission till Nov 23, according to information obtained through an RTI query.

The pending appeals have seen a 35 percent increase in a period of three months since Rajiv Mathur retired Aug 23 as the chief information commissioner, according to information received by RTI activist Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra.

The chief information commissioner is the final authority that applicants who are dissatisfied with the information supplied to them under the Right to Information Act (RTI) can turn to.

The data given to Batra showed the defence ministry has seen the highest number of appeals with a total of 2,549 cases pending, followed by the human resource development ministry with 1,222 cases.

"Until a chief is appointed, the cases will continue to pile up as the chief information commissioner is the only authority who assigns cases to other information commissioners," said Batra.