NEW DELHI: The ministries of Tribal Affairs and Home Affairs led the Central government departments in rejecting the most number of RTI applications filed by the public to seek information from the government, the Central Information Commission's annual report tabled in Parliament stated.
The report, tabled in both houses of Parliament this week, said 64,334 applications, which comes to 4.70 per cent of the 13.70 lakh applications received during 2018-19, were rejected.
This is a decline from 5.13 per cent applications rejected last year.
The number of RTI applications received by Central government ministries and departments increased by 1.36 lakh, about 11 per cent higher than 2017-18, it said.
"Highest percentage of RTI applications rejected was reported by Ministry of Tribal Affairs (26.54%) and Ministry of Home Affairs (16.41%)," a statement from personnel ministry quoting the report said on Friday.
The first appeals before seniors against the decisions of RTI processing officers called Central Public Information Officers marginally declined from 9.72 per cent last year to 9.29 per cent in 2018-19.
The CIC disposed of 17,188 Second Appeals and Complaints cases in 2018-19. A total of 22,736 cases were registered during the same period. At the end of the year, the Commission had 29,655 cases pending before it," it said.
The figures are based on annual returns submitted by all 2,145 registered public authorities with the Commission.