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An analysis of the orders of the CIC: RTI Study 4

12 Sep, 2012

STUDY - 4

This is the fourth and concluding part of the study in respect of the orders by each of the Information Commissioners and date wise disposal of cases at the Central Information Commission (CIC) in the month of July, 2012.

The first part of the study dealt with the outcome of the appeals / complaints heard by the Central Information Commission (CIC) in terms of the disclosure of the information sought. The readers may refer to the RTI Study 1 on this site or click on the link http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/analysis-orders-cic-rti-study-1-2187

The second part of the study dealt with the penal proceedings, compensation awarded and the recommendations given by the CIC. For the second part of this study, readers may kindly refer to the RTI Study 2 on this site or click on the link http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/analysis-orders-cic-rti-study-2-2197

The clubbing of orders by the Information Commissioners, the format of the order issued by the CIC and the monthly disposal of cases by the CIC were taken up for analysis in the third part of the study. Link - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/analysis-orders-cic-rti-study-3-2220

Abbreviations used:

CIC – Central Information Commission

PIO – Public Information Officer

FAA – First Appellate Authority

SCN – Show Cause Notice

IC – Information Commissioner

SIC – State Information Commission

Numerical disposal of cases by the Information Commissioners

A look at the total number of orders issued by each of the Information Commissioners in the month of July reveals a significant variation in the number of appeals / complaints disposed by the different Information Commissioners. Out of the 2312 cases disposed by the CIC in July 2012, it is seen that 123 cases have been dealt at the level of Deputy Registrar. All these cases carry an appeal number and have been put on the CIC website under the category of ‘Decisions of CIC’ and hence were included in the study. Shri Vijay Bhalla, (Dy. Registrar) transferred 121 appeals to the State Information Commission (SIC) as the same did not pertain to the CIC while Shri G. Subramaniam (Dy. Registrar) disposed 2 appeals where the appellant requested for withdrawing the appeal.

After excluding the cases disposed by the Deputy registrar, it is seen that the total disposal by the CIC was 2189 and therefore, the average disposal in July by each Information Commissioner is 243 cases.

It is seen that the maximum number of orders were passed by Mrs. Annapurna Dixit which was 468. The other Information Commissioners who passed more then 200 orders in July 2012 were Shri M.L. Sharma (402 cases), Smt. Deepak Sandhu (331 cases), Mrs. Sushma Singh (253) and Shri Satyananda Mishra (237 cases).

Table 1: Disposal of cases by the individual Information Commissioners

S. No.	Name of the Information Commissioner	Number of cases decided by IC	% of total orders by CIC (rounded to one decimal)
1	Mrs. Annapurna Dixit	468	20.2
2	Shri Basant Seth	175	7.6
3	Shri M. L. Sharma	402	17.4
4	Shri Rajiv Mathur	128	5.5
5	Shri Satyananda Mishra	237	10.3
6	Shri Shailesh Gandhi*	50	2.2
7	Smt. Deepak Sandhu	331	14.3
8	Smt. Sushma Singh	253	10.9
9	Shri Vijai Sharma	143	6.2
10	Shri Vijay Bhalla / G. Subramaniam (Dy. Registrar)	123**	5.3
11	Mrs. Annapurna Dixit, Smt. Sushma Singh and Shri M. L. Sharma	2***	0.1
	Total	2312	100%

*Shri Shailesh Gandhi retired during the month of July.

**The appeals to CIC were transferred to the State Information Commission (SIC) or withrawn.

***Apart from the individual orders, two orders were passed in the capacity of a three member bench.

Analysis:

The total number of appeals pending before the CIC has shown an increasing trend during the past as the disposal of cases has not been able to keep pace with the number of appeals filed with the CIC.

The CIC (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2005 [Notification F.No. 1/4/2005-IR, Dated 28th October, 2005] did not have a specific provision for the registry to deal with the incomplete appeal / complaints. All cases were to be put up before the CIC for decision. As per the Right to Information Rules, 2012 [notification G.S.R. 603(E) dated 31st July, 2012], an appeal may be returned to the appellant for removing deficiencies if it is not accompanied by the specified documents, but there is no power to the registry to transfer the appeals/ complaints to another organisation or finally close the appeal.

The scrutiny of the orders shows that there is a wide variation in the number of cases disposed of by each Information Commissioner. It would be pertinent to refer to the minutes of the Meeting of the CIC held on 22.3.2011 which says “Taking note of the increasing pendency of appeals/ complaints in the Commission over the last few years and realizing the need for their expeditious disposal, the Commission hereby resolves that each single bench of the Commission shall take urgent steps to maximize its disposal without comprising the quality thereof, as a general rule, each single bench will endeavor to finally decide about 3200 appeals/complaints per year”.

The CIC website does not provide the figures for disposal of cases done by the individual Information Commissioner and there is no report of the evaluation of the performance of the individual Information Commissioner by the Chief Information Commissioner on the website of the CIC.

The daily disposal of cases at the CIC

Scrutiny of the figures of disposal of cases by the CIC on each day of July shows a huge fluctuation in the number of orders passed. The daily disposal of cases has varied more than threefold and ranged from 69 to 243. The maximum orders passed on a single day were 234 which occurred on 25^th July, 2012 while merely 69 orders were passed on the last day of July. Out of 31 days, the month of July had 23 working days which saw the passing of 2132 orders which implies an average of about 93 orders per working day or an average of 69 orders daily if the non-working days are also taken into account.

For a fall in the pendency of cases, the daily disposal of cases must increase to a level which is higher than the average receipt per day. The receipt of cases for the months of June to August has not been updated on the website of the CIC. However, 32968 cases were received between May 11 and April 12, which implies that the average monthly receipt is 2747 or a daily receipt of 90 cases. Between May 11 and April 12, 23500 cases were disposed which implies an average monthly disposal of 1958 cases or an average daily disposal of 64 cases.

Table 2: Date wise disposal of cases by the CIC in July, 2012

S. No.	Date	Day	Number of cases disposed
1	01-07-2012	Sunday	00*
2	02-07-2012	Monday	104
3	03-07-2012	Tuesday	87
4	04-07-2012	Wednesday	96
5	05-07-2012	Thursday	107
6	06-07-2012	Friday	95
7	07-07-2012	Saturday	00*
8	08-07-2012	Sunday	00*
9	09-07-2012	Monday	113
10	10-07-2012	Tuesday	94
11	11-07-2012	Wednesday	93
12	12-07-2012	Thursday	109
13	13-07-2012	Friday	81
14	14-07-2012	Saturday	00*
15	15-07-2012	Sunday	00*
16	16-07-2012	Monday	101
17	17-07-2012	Tuesday	116
18	18-07-2012	Wednesday	97
19	19-07-2012	Thursday	107
20	20-07-2012	Friday	87
21	21-07-2012	Saturday	00*
22	22-07-2012	Sunday	00*
23	23-07-2012	Monday	93
24	24-07-2012	Tuesday	101
25	25-07-2012	Wednesday	243
26	26-07-2012	Thursday	104
27	27-07-2012	Friday	111
28	28-07-2012	Saturday	00*
29	29-07-2012	Sunday	00*
30	30-07-2012	Monday	104
31	31-07-2012	Tuesday	69
	TOTAL		2312

*The CIC follows a 5 day week.

Suggestion:

There is a need to increase the daily disposal of cases failing which the CIC would succumb to the increasing burden of the appeals / complaints.

The Information Commissioners may consider setting a daily / monthly target for the disposal of cases for their own selves which would aid in ending the huge pendency.

An option should be made available for a visitor of the CIC site to see the disposal of cases by each of the Information Commissioner by his name too. The CIC website should have an option to view the daily disposal of cases by the Commission. This would put pressure on the individual Information Commissioner to perform better.

In a period where expectations reign high, even a small delay is something which is frowned upon by the people. Hence, it would be unfair to keep the post of the Information Commissioner vacant even for a single day.

The order of transfer of appeals to State Information Commission (SIC) was issued by Shri Vijay Bhalla, (Dy. Registrar) as per “directions” while Shri G. Subramaniam (Dy. Registrar) allowed withdrawing of appeals in 2 cases on the request of the appellant. The initial screening procedure by the Deputy Registrar needs to be evolved and given a legal backing lest it be questioned. Such procedure where the scrutiny is done by the supporting staff should have the Information Commissioner as the authority to take the final decision. Adoption of such a formal procedure would aid in faster clearance of the applications and complaints.

All the orders of July at the CIC website were downloaded on 11^th August, 2012 for the earlier parts of this study which have been put on the site as study 1, 2, and 3. While the fourth part of the study based on the same data was being uplinked on this web-site, it was found to our surprise that the CIC website had added more orders of July. This forced us to postpone uploading the analysis done by us as a part of last part of the study. After waiting for the CIC website to uplink all the orders of July, the cases uploaded till 6^th September 2012 were downloaded and the study 4 was redone. Hopefully, all the orders of July, 2012 have now been posted on the CIC website.
It was noticed that whenever the benches of CIC club different appeals and pass a common order, their reporting on the website differs. For example, if a common order is passed for two appeals, it is usually posted twice on the website or may also be posted as one order. All the orders were examined and wherever more than one appeal / complaint were disposed through a common order, the actual number of appeals disposed were counted.

Time to ponder

When the RTI Act, 2005 came into existence, it was thought of as a panacea for many of the prevailing ills in the system. Strict time limits were prescribed in the Act for the PIO and the FAA to follow amidst hopes of a new era of transparency and accountability. The system too, reacted in various ways which can be attributed to many reasons. Dread of loss of powers (whether real or perceived), fear of exposure to new accountability norms, ignorance of the provisions of the RTI Act, old mindset or expectation of a positive change – one or more than one of the causes listed were the causes for the reaction.

The Information Commission is the body which has the responsibility of ensuring that an ordinary citizen does not suffer and gets the due information within a reasonable time frame. The option of filing a PIL in the Courts to get the information was already available with the citizens even when the RTI Act was not in existence. The Act has simplified the procedure and saved a citizen from the rigors of the judicial process.

The average receipt and disposal of cases between May’ 2011 – April’ 2012 has been 2747 and 1958 respectively which shows that 789 cases were added to the pendency position of the CIC every month. During the life time of the CIC, the maximum disposal of cases by the CIC has never exceeded 2500 in a month while the number of appeals / complaints have been rising.

Table 3: Pendency status at CIC and the likely future

S. No.	Year	Month	Cases pending with the CIC	*Extrapolation 1 (Realistic)**	*Extrapolation 2 (Conservative)**
1	2006	Apr-06	638	nil	nil
2	2006	May-06	846	nil	nil
3	2006	Jun-06	1090	nil	nil
4	2006	Jul-06	1312	nil	nil
5	2006	Aug-06	1429	nil	nil
6	2006	Sep-06	1589	nil	nil
7	2006	Oct-06	1652	nil	nil
8	2006	Nov-06	1865	nil	nil
9	2006	Dec-06	2018	nil	nil
10	2007	Jan-07	2380	nil	nil
11	2007	Feb-07	2684	nil	nil
12	2007	Mar-07	3247	nil	nil
13	2007	Apr-07	3437	nil	nil
14	2007	May-07	3770	nil	nil
15	2007	Jun-07	3778	nil	nil
16	2007	Jul-07	3859	nil	nil
17	2007	Aug-07	3814	nil	nil
18	2007	Sep-07	4076	nil	nil
19	2007	Oct-07	4506	nil	nil
20	2007	Nov-07	5105	nil	nil
21	2007	Dec-07	5313	nil	nil
22	2008	Jan-08	6084	nil	nil
23	2008	Feb-08	6754	nil	nil
24	2008	Mar-08	6820	nil	nil
25	2008	Apr-08	7145	nil	nil
26	2008	May-08	7884	nil	nil
27	2008	Jun-08	8098	nil	nil
28	2008	Jul-08	8369	nil	nil
29	2008	Aug-08	8787	nil	nil
30	2008	Sep-08	9183	nil	nil
31	2008	Oct-08	9097	nil	nil
32	2008	Nov-08	9521	nil	nil
33	2008	Dec-08	9593	nil	nil
34	2009	Jan-09	9123	nil	nil
35	2009	Feb-09	8665	nil	nil
36	2009	Mar-09	8924	nil	nil
37	2009	Apr-09	9181	nil	nil
38	2009	May-09	9318	nil	nil
39	2009	Jun-09	9769	nil	nil
40	2009	Jul-09	10148	nil	nil
41	2009	Aug-09	10447	nil	nil
42	2009	Sep-09	10183	nil	nil
43	2009	Oct-09	10749	nil	nil
44	2009	Nov-09	10540	nil	nil
45	2009	Dec-09	11469	nil	nil
46	2010	Jan-10	11679	nil	nil
47	2010	Feb-10	11771	nil	nil
48	2010	Mar-10	12242	nil	nil
49	2010	Apr-10	12675	nil	nil
50	2010	May-10	13155	nil	nil
51	2010	Jun-10	13744	nil	nil
52	2010	Jul-10	14197	nil	nil
53	2010	Aug-10	14098	nil	nil
54	2010	Sep-10	14155	nil	nil
55	2010	Oct-10	14447	nil	nil
56	2010	Nov-10	14815	nil	nil
57	2010	Dec-10	15481	nil	nil
58	2011	Jan-11	16233	nil	nil
59	2011	Feb-11	16392	nil	nil
60	2011	Mar-11	17046	nil	nil
61	2011	Apr-11	18668	nil	nil
62	2011	May-11	18854	nil	nil
63	2011	Jun-11	19276	nil	nil
64	2011	Jul-11	19571	nil	nil
65	2011	Aug-11	20232	nil	nil
66	2011	Sep-11	21041	nil	nil
67	2011	Oct-11	21745	nil	nil
68	2011	Nov-11	22725	nil	nil
69	2011	Dec-11	26049	nil	nil
70	2012	Jan-12	26574	nil	nil
71	2012	Feb-12	27367	nil	nil
72	2012	Mar-12	27856	nil	nil
73	2012	Apr-12	28136	28136	28136
74	2012	May-12	not reported	29686	27757
75	2012	Jun-12	not reported	30670	28438
76	2012	Jul-12	not reported	31655	29119
77	2012	Aug-12	not reported	32640	29800
78	2012	Sep-12		33624	30481
79	2012	Oct-12		34609	31162
80	2012	Nov-12		35594	31843
81	2012	Dec-12		36578	32523
82	2013	Jan-13		37563	33204
83	2013	Feb-13		38547	33885
84	2013	Mar-13		39532	34566
85	2013	Apr-13		40517	35247
86	2013	May-13		41501	35928
87	2013	Jun-13		42486	36609
88	2013	Jul-13		43471	37290
89	2013	Aug-13		44455	37971
90	2013	Sep-13		45440	38652
91	2013	Oct-13		46425	39333
92	2013	Nov-13		47409	40014
93	2013	Dec-13		48394	40695
94	2014	Jan-14		49379	41376
95	2014	Feb-14		50363	42057
96	2014	Mar-14		51348	42738
97	2014	Apr-14		52332	43419

*For April’ 06 to April’ 12, the figures are actual which have been extrapolated mathematically to show the possible scenario in case the same pattern of receipt and disposal continues.

However, if a citizen is not able to get information from the Information Commission within a reasonable time frame, the consequences are likely to be disastrous for the system in general and the RTI Act in particular. Would anyone ever consider coming to the Information Commission if no response is expected for two years? The question is not the quality of orders passed by the CIC but getting a reply from it. If the current rate of receipt and disposal continues, there would be a pendency of over 40,000 cases in 2013 which would cross the mark of 50,000 in 2014. Would the CIC be able to survive from the weight of such a burden? In such a scenario, the appeal filed in January 2014 would not even come for hearing before the CIC till 2016. The results would be catastrophic for the RTI Act which appears to be gradually marching towards a slow death at the tender age of 7. With the loss of faith in the RTI Act, there would be few citizens who would care to even come to the CIC for claiming their right to information.

While the projections may appear alarming, all is not lost and the situation can be, and needs to be, salvaged. It is up to all of us to take a notice and ensure that remedial measures are taken timely. The Information Commission has taken many steps in the past for the ensuring transparency, including some land mark orders. The RTI activists have raised their voices against denial of information while the media has highlighted the issues plaguing the RTI. The same government which brought in the RTI Act to herald the era of transparency is in power today. It is time that the UPA government takes a notice of the impediments being faced by the RTI Act.

Graph 1: Cases pending at CIC and the expected future pendency

Series 1 (Blue) shows the actual number of cases pending with the CIC.

Series 2 (Red) shows a realistic estimate of the likely pendency for the coming two years.

Series 3 (Green) shows a conservative estimate of the likely pendency for the coming two years.

A special drive needs to be undertaken to clear the backlog of nearly 30,000 appeals and complaints pending with the CIC today. If 2,500 orders are passed every month, it would need nearly one year for the eventual clearance of the unresolved cases. Assuming that the number of appeals /complaints coming to the CIC continues to come at the same rate as witnessed during the last one year, it means that over 2700 additional cases would be required to be dealt with by the CIC on a monthly basis. Is the CIC in a position to handle over 5000 cases a month? Time for a deep thought for all the stakeholders.

An analysis of the orders of the CIC: RTI Study 4

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