NEW DELHI: It’s been 14 years since the Right to Information (RTI) Act came into force, but only five of the 29 Information Commissions maintain data related to cases of threats and harassments against RTI activists, said a report released by the Transparency International.
The report said currently 24 out of 155 posts (excluding J&K, a UT now) of Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners are vacant while there are only seven women Information Commissioners in India — approximately 4.5 per cent of the total sanctioned posts.
The NGO said the litmus test for implementation of the RTI Act, 2005 is its success at the state level and it conceptualised this exhaustive analysis across 28 states and the Central Information Commission.
The functioning of each State Information Commission has been analysed along with the essential parameters, which bring out the extent to which each state is complying with the provisions of the law.
The report said in about 15,578 cases penalty was imposed by State Information Commissions from 2005-06 to 2018-19. The highest penalty imposed in the last three years was of over Rs 81 lakh, imposed by the Uttarakhand SIC.
A total of 3.2 crore applications under the Act have been received so far across the country. “This report will help stakeholders to understand the high and low of implementation of RTI Act in India and catalyse further debate and discussion on these pertinent questions,” said Rama Nath Jha, Executive Director of Transparency International India.