Nagpur: The National President of Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Man, Sanjay Agrawal lamented that due to non-disposal of information speedily, the Right to Information (RTI) Act is dying a slow death.
According to Agrawal, 5074 appeals and 818 complaints are pending with the Nagpur Bench of the State Information Commission till May 2022. The Nagpur Bench Public Information Officer D M Shahare in reply to an RTI query replied that total 5074 appeals including 3 of the year 2019, 1258 of 2020, 2519 of 2021 and 1294 appeals till May 2022 are pending for disposal.
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Similarly, out of the complaints received by the Commission, a total 818 complaints including 2 complaints of 2018, 430 of 2019, 91 of 2020, 190 of 2021, and 105 complaints of 2022 are pending. In May 2022, the Commission disposed off total of 127 second appeals and 23 other orders were passed. Similarly, 58 complaints were also disposed of in the same month. This month, the Commissioner received 218 new appeals and 50 complaints, Agrawal stated.
Agrawal further said that in the year 2005, the Right to Information Act was enacted with this objective that corruption and red tape would be curbed. But now nothing of the sort is happening. Information Officers of various government departments and the first appellate officer willfully reject the applications of the people or they do not give any answer because they know that there is no second appeal in the State Information Commission before 3-4 years, he claimed. “Thus, the Government should immediately increase the number of commissioners so that the applications of the people are disposed of quickly and they get justice,” Agrawal demanded.
