Detailed Methodology and Analysis of Performance of
Information Commissions

METHODOLOGY

We had to collect all the orders passed by 28 Information Commissions in the country. While some orders were on their websites, for many commissions, we had to file RTI applications and sometimes make multiple trips to collect their orders. For instance, despite two trips to Lucknow, we did not get any orders from them. Finally, we could collect 51,128 orders. Each of these orders was read and analyzed by a team of 12 people for almost six months. The following data was captured:

Name and address of appellant
Name and address of public authority
Date of second appeal
Date of order
Case closed with observation that information had already been provided
PIO directed to provide full information
PIO directed to provide part information
Complete denial of information
Whether case was remanded back
Show cause notice issued
Show cause notice withdrawn
Penalty imposed
Penalty withdrawn after being imposed
If opportunity of hearing was given to both parties

For some states or commissioners, if a typical practice was observed, that data was also captured for that particular commissioner or state by creating a new column in data sheet. For instance, in the case of some commissioners, it was found that they reject a large number of cases on the ground that what has been sought is not “information” under section 2(f). Another example, “missing records” was rampantly used and allowed in some states as an excuse for denying information. So, such data for certain commissioners was also captured. We also obtained some more data from commissions like their brought forward and carried forward pendencies, budget details etc.

At the end of analysis of orders, we found that 34,980 orders had been passed in favor of full disclosure.

The next question before us was whether these people, in whose cases pro-disclosure orders had been passed, finally receive satisfactory information or not. This was because ultimately a person approaches an information commission for information and not for an order.

Our, initial plan was to write to 10% of these appellants and draw our conclusions from their response because we did not have the budget to send letters to all appellants. But then, after extensive discussions, we decided to send letters to all 34,980 appellants. Corners were cut and somehow money was found to send out these letters. So we wrote letters to all these 34,980 people asking them whether they finally received complete and satisfactory information.

These letters were prepared and handled by a team of almost 25 people working for three months. Many letters came back undelivered due to wrong or incomplete address. However, in the first stage, we received written response from roughly 6,000 people. We then consulted some statistics experts who reassured us that for a population size of 34,980 this was a reasonably good sample. However, this was not uniformly distributed over all commissioners. Response in some cases was inadequate.

The next big issue was how to get more responses. Also, analysis of 51,128 orders was a huge exercise. There could be mistakes. So, we were advised by some jury members that we should put up our findings on the website in each category for two reasons—to get more feedback and also to request people to point out mistakes, if any. These findings were put on our site on October 21, 2009, more than a month before the final awards ceremony. It was made abundantly clear that these were merely interim findings and were likely to change after more feedbacks were received.

Many people also pointed out specific mistakes in our analysis, which we have corrected before preparing this final report. We are particularly grateful to C J Karira from Andhra Pradesh and Pradeep Pradhan from Orissa for pointing out specific mistakes. We are also grateful to Major Ravindran and Col Kurup from Kerala for providing us with useful inputs which reflected upon the performance of Kerala Information Commissioners.

We also got some feedback through our website. However, this was also inadequate. So, we called up and wrote to all such commissioners in whose cases the feedback was inadequate requesting them to provide us with phone numbers of appellants from their appeal files. While some Commissioners were kind enough to compile this information themselves and send it to us, several others also allowed us to inspect their files and take out numbers ourselves. Therefore, we visited Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Jharkhand and some other places to collect these phone numbers..

All these appellants, whose numbers we had received, were called up and interviewed on phone to take their feedback. In the case of Arunachal Pradesh, even that did not work because phone networks are quite bad in that state. So, our team went to Itanagar and contacted many of the appellants personally.

We have tried to ensure that we include feedback of at least 20% people (in whose case pro-disclosure orders were passed) for each commissioner. However, in some cases it is still less, because despite all our efforts, we could not get more feedback. We have mentioned “inadequate data” against these commissioners in our analysis.

After the release of interim report, we have received feedback from another 2400 people. Interestingly, the interim report said that only 39% orders passed by Information Commissioners get implemented. 27% of all the people who approach information commissions finally get information. These figures have almost remained same at the time of this final report also i.e. 38% orders of information commissions get implemented and 26% of the people who approach information commissions finally get information. This indicates to the correctness of the survey.

Initially, the analysis was presented in the form of four parameters. However, these parameters did not reflect pendencies and disposals. So, as per feedback received from several people, a new parameter was later added to reflect this information also. The parameters and their analysis follows.

We wish to clarify that all the parameters should be read together to comment upon the performance of any commissioner. For instance, if a commissioner is high on one parameter but is lower on others, he will certainly not be effective in his functioning. Therefore, being high on one parameter is no reason for celebration, and being low on another is no reason for regret, though it does reflect upon areas of strengths and weaknesses of a commissioner.

Three of the parameters i.e. Pro-disclosure factor, Deterrent Impact and Disposals are straight from analysis and do not depend upon feedback. The other two parameters i.e. Overall Public Satisfaction and Effectiveness depend upon public feedback.

We have made slight changes in presentation of figures and rankings for two parameters on the basis of feedback received from several quarters – Effectiveness and Overall Public Satisfaction. In the interim report, we had mentioned specific percentages of compliance of orders and satisfaction for each commissioner. However, the percentages are so close to each other in some cases that inter se rankings could change if more feedbacks were taken. Therefore, we have created bands of percentages and rather than writing specific percentages, we have mentioned these figures in ranges (10 to 20%, 20 to 30% and so on).

Role of an Information Commission

Before we go into detailed analysis, it would be useful to discuss the role of an information commission. The information commission has two roles:

Wherever there is a dispute whether information should be provided or not, the commission acts as a quasi-judicial body and is required to adjudicate whether information should be provided or not through a speaking order.
In rest of the cases, where it is clear that information had to be provided, the commission needs to ensure that the appellant gets full and correct information and also has to create a deterrent -- a strong deterrent so that officials should attend to every RTI request within prescribed time with the best of their ability and intentions.

Some commissioners observe in their orders that since information has already been provided now, penalty is condoned. Such a stand appears to be a violation of the RTI Act. It also creates an atmosphere where the officers will stop providing information in first instance and number of appeals and complaints filed at Commissions would increase so much that it would jam their machinery. We are already witnessing such trends in some states.

PARAMETERS

PENDENCY & DISPOSALS

Two figures have been put together for each commissioner to draw conclusions for this parameter i.e. pendency and disposals. Whereas the disposal of some commissioners may look quite low, but it is not their fault because they receive very few appeals.

A commissioner may have a huge pendency despite disposing large number of cases. However, a commissioner who disposes very few cases despite having a huge pendency is certainly a matter of concern.

Since some commissioners worked for less than a year, we have calculated the disposals on per month basis. Wherever the commission did not give us pendency of individual commissioners, we have divided the total pendency of the commission by number of commissioners. However, some commissions did not even provide us even with the figures of commission’s pendencies. At these places, we have mentioned “NA”

(Important note: To calculate the disposals of a commissioner per month, we have added no of cases disposed by him/her as a single bench and no of cases disposed with other commissioners in joint benches. To that extent, you may observe discrepancy in the disposal figure used for this parameter and that mentioned against that commissioner’s name and used for other parameters)

Vijay Baburao Borge and Naveen Kumar have disposed maximum number of cases – 383 and 333 respectively per month. However, Vijay Baburao Borge rejected as many as 78% cases without hearings. Naveen Kumar remanded back 50% cases and rejected 36% cases without hearings.

Shailesh Gandhi has made a remarkable progress on this parameter. When he joined about a year back, the waiting period was almost 12 months. This has come down to about two months now. He disposed all cases by holding proper hearings barring those which were in the nature of complaints and where order was passed in favor appellant.

At the lower end are North Easter States, but they have very few cases being filed.

Maharashtra tops with 187 orders passed per month per commissioner. However, as discussed above, large number of cases were rejected or remanded back without hearings. Maharashtra also had maximum pendency of 14,307 cases.

In Bihar, 175 orders were passed per commissioner per month. Here again, a large number of cases were remanded back.

PRO-DISCLOSURE FACTOR

This refers to those cases in which orders were passed in favor of disclosure. The calculation of pro-disclosure was simple – we divided those cases in which an order in favor of disclosure was passed by the total number of responses.

Pro-disclosure = Number of cases in which orders were passed in favor of disclosure *100
Total number of cases dealt by the commissioner

We read each order to determine whether the commissioner had passed orders in favor of disclosure or not. We came across two types of orders.

If pro-disclosure factor is 60%, does it mean that the commissioner denied information in 40% cases? Not necessary. The balance 40% cases may consist of remanded back cases, cases in which information was denied, those cases which were rejected on technical grounds, etc.

After our interim findings were released, we received a letter from R S Tolia, Information Commissioner of Uttarakhand. He objected to remanded back cases not being included in pro-disclosure category. However, we explained that though remanded back cases cannot be treated as pro-disclosure cases, however, we would provide separate details of such cases so that people do not treat them as denial or rejected cases. In our final report, we are now separately mentioning remanded back cases.

A lower pro-disclosure factor should not necessarily be viewed adversely. For instance, if a commissioner is dealing with departments like police or income tax, the number of denials is likely to be higher. A commissioner dealing with rural development department may have a higher pro-disclosure factor. But overall, a high pro-disclosure factor certainly indicates overall pro-disclosure attitude of a commissioner. Likewise, a low pro-disclosure factor indicates a need to go into the reasons for the same.

Also, the purpose of the RTI Act is to extend the boundaries of transparency rather than restrict them. Everything has to be weighed on the scale of public interest. Everything should be disclosed unless public interest would be hampered by its disclosure. Section 8 exemptions have also been prescribed keeping in mind that disclosure of certain types of information would impede public interest. If a commissioner has ordered 100% disclosure and as a result, if no harm (real or perceived) happened to any individual or society, then shouldn’t we encourage disclosures on all such issues by other commissioners also. Merely justifying non-disclosure by going into technicalities of the law would not help the cause. Therefore, a better pro-disclosure factor is certainly desirable.

At a national level, 68% orders were passed by the Commissioners in favor of disclosure.

Anil Joshi of Chhattisgarh and combined benches of Chhattisgarh passed 100% orders in favor of disclosure. This means they neither denied information in any case, nor did they remand back or technically reject any case. They are followed by combined benches of Assam, who passed 98.8% cases in favor of disclosure and B K Gohain of Assam who passed pro-disclosure orders in 98% cases. Almost 35 commissioners and combined benches passed more than 90% orders in favor of disclosures.

At the lower end is Naveen Kumar of Maharashtra who ordered disclosure only in 13.7% cases. He remanded back 50% of the cases received by him and partly or fully denied information in 36% cases (this also includes rejections on technical grounds). Interestingly, all such cases where no first appeal had been filed, where the order of the first appeal had not been implemented or where there had been an inordinate delay at second appeal stage were all remanded back!

Next from the bottom is C D Arha, whose pro-disclosure factor is 18.1%. He remanded back 34% cases and denied information in 48% cases (most of them being technical rejections).

Vijay Baburao Borge is at 21.5%. He denied information in almost 78% cases, majority of them being technical rejections. He did not remand back any case.

Remand back cases:

Which type of cases should be remanded back?

There appears to be an overlap in the law. Section 19(1) of the RTI Act and section 18(1)(c) and 18(1)(e) talk of exactly similar situations i.e. if a person does not receive any response or receives an unsatisfactory response within prescribed time period, he can either approach the Commission directly under section 18 or he can file the first appeal under section 19.

Interestingly, we have observed a range of practices across the country. On one extreme are Commissioners like Naveen Kumar of Maharashtra who remanded back as much as 50% of his cases whereas his own colleague Vijay Kuvlekar remanded back barely a few cases. C D Arha of Andhra Pradesh remanded back 34% of the cases received by him. However, within the same Commission, Dileep Reddy and K S Rao did not remand back even a single case. In Haryana, on one hand, Meenaxi Anand remanded back 47% cases, her colleagues M R Ranga and Asha Sharma did not remand back even a single case. The entire Commissions of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, including all its Commissioners, did not remand back even a single case. Karnataka, Punjab and Kerala remanded back negligible number of cases. In the Central Information Commission, S N Mishra remanded back as many as 26% cases followed by Wajahat Habibullah and A N Tiwari, who remanded back 18% cases.

In our discussions, commissioners have forwarded interesting arguments depending upon the practice that they follow. One argument is that the law gives an option to the appellant – whether the appellant wishes to invoke section 18 or section 19. Section 19 says that the appellant “may” file the first appeal. Section 18 says that it “shall be the duty” of the Information Commission “to receive and enquire into a complaint” received. Section 18 casts a very strong duty upon the Commissions to act upon complaints received under this section. Therefore, it is argued, that the Commission should respect the decision of the appellants, which section they wish to invoke, as this option has been given to the appellants by the Parliament. The other extreme argument is that any complaint filed under Section 18 should be returned back if there is no first appeal filed. However, this argument would render section 18 completely ineffective. A middle path has been chosen by some commissioners. If an appellant does not receive any response from the PIO within 30 days, they entertain a complaint under section 18. But if an appellant is dissatisfied with the response received, they treat it as an issue of adjudication or appeal and require first appeal to be filed in such cases. Is that legally a right approach?

There is a huge confusion in the minds of people due to this. “What is the right practice?” is the larger question. Within the same Commission, the Commissioners are following completely different practices.

Rejections on technical grounds:

Some commissioners have rejected a large number of cases on technical grounds. These were found particularly high in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and the CIC.

C D Arha of Andhra Pradesh rejected 34% of the total cases received by him on technical grounds. A Subba Rao of Andhra Pradesh rejected 31% cases on technical grounds. Following are some of the grounds citing which cases were rejected:

The appellant has not mentioned whether he has paid the fee or not
The appellant did not self attest enclosures
Copy of RTI application has not been enclosed
Copy of first appeal has not been filed
Case is time barred
The appellant has filed one appeal for three RTI applications
No proof has been filed to show that RTI application was filed before the PIO
No proofs have been filed to show that first appeals were filed before the first Appellate Authority

Interestingly no hearings were conducted in cases which were either remanded back or technically rejected.

Andhra Pradesh has quite cumbersome RTI Rules. That could be one of the reasons for high rejections. However, that cannot be the only reason. Because the other two commissioners in the same commission i.e. Dileep Reddy and K S Rao hardly rejected any cases on technical grounds. The same RTI Rules apply to them too.

We were told that these were just technical objections and the appellant was asked to remove them within a week and the case was then fixed for hearing. However, we did not find evidence of that. If that were true, then there should have been two orders in such cases – one for technical rejection and the other for subsequent disposal after the objection was removed. However, we found very few cases of technical rejection in which we found subsequent orders, which means that once a case was rejected, the appellant perhaps did not pursue the case.

In Maharashtra, three commissioners rejected a large number of cases on technical grounds. Vijay Borge rejected 71% cases (3,266 cases), Vilas Patil rejected 43% cases (1,008 cases) and Naveen Kumar rejected 33% cases (1,004 cases). According to them, these cases were rejected and sent back to the appellants without having been heard even once. Interestingly, Maharashtra does not have complicated RTI Rules. Vijay Kuvalekar from the same commission, however, rejected only 57 cases.

CIC had been at the top till two years back in rejecting cases on technical grounds. In April 2007, 57.96% of appeals received by the CIC were rejected. Rejection figures rose to 63.76% in June 2007. In the period January to June 2007, 13,152 appeals and complaints were received by the Commission out of which 8,229 were rejected due to technical deficiencies. Only 4,823 were registered! This means nearly two out of three appeals and complaints were not registered! Faced with a lot of criticism earlier, the CIC responded to us recently that they have stopped maintaining these figures!

We did not get information from other commissions on this account. Therefore, we are not sure whether such a practice exists in other commissions also.

With so much illiteracy and lack of knowledge, should the cases be rejected in such large numbers on such technical grounds? Shouldn’t the Commissioners hand-hold citizens? When Supreme Court of India accepts anything written on a post card as a writ petition, the Commissioners need to become less bureaucratic.

Denials:

In most cases of denials, the following emerged as some of the most cited reasons:

1. Definition of Information: Information sought does not fall within the definition of “information” under the RTI Act – this seems to be becoming a major cause for denial of cases. M M Ansari rejected 134 cases on this ground, almost 8% of the total cases decided by him.

Information on questions like – what action has been taken on my complaint, by when would action be taken on my complaint, why has no action been taken so far, etc have been declared out of the purview of the RTI Act by some commissioners. In many cases, commissioners have raised strong displeasure at people using the RTI Act for their personal grievances. Kerala Information Commission says that you cannot ask questions like why a Consumer Court did not sit on a particular date? Why have the orders of High Court not been obeyed? According to them, this is outside RTI Act.

Interestingly, different practices are being followed by Commissioners in same Commissions. Whereas Shailesh Gandhi, A N Tiwari and M M Ansari rejected large number of cases on this ground, Wajahat Habibullah and O P Kejariwal have allowed information and have denied very few cases on these grounds. R N Das of Gujarat and Vijay Kuvlekar of Maharashtra have not only entertained such requests for information and ensured that information is provided, but have also gone out of their way to get the grievances redressed.

However, Prof M M Ansari has allowed information in some such cases by resorting to section 4(1)(d). According to section 4(1)(d) of the RTI Act, any government agency is required to suo moto inform the affected people, reasons for all its administrative and quasi-judicial decisions. According to Ansari, public authorities are duty bound to provide reasons to public about its inaction on any issue also under this clause. This is a very interesting and progressive interpretation of this clause.

Sometimes, people ask for information, which neither exists, nor could be compiled. It is hypothetical. In such cases, obviously, information cannot be provided. Else we need to debate whether denying information only on the ground that it is a “query” would take the RTI Act backwards.

Often, the definition of “information” under section 2(f) is cited as a reason to deny information. It is said that the information should be in “material form” to be provided. However, the Act does not say that. The Act says “information includes any material in any form”, which means that information may not be in “material form” but could be in any other form also. There is a lot of information, which the concerned officials are aware of but it does not exist in the written form. Does the Act cast a duty on the government to put it in a written form and provide it to information seeker? In our opinion “yes”.

Any law should be interpreted in a manner that it promotes wider public good. The RTI Act should be interpreted in a manner that it expands the boundaries of transparency rather than restricting it. Will any damage take place on public interest if the queries were answered? It appears “No” because a large number of Information Commissioners are already allowing queries. There are very few commissioners who disallow queries. We hope they would revisit their stand.

2. Missing records: Many PIOs report “missing records”, “records lost”, “not traceable” as reasons for denying information. This trend seems to be on the rise, depending upon the response of Information Commissioners to such pleas. Response of commissioners has been varied.

Assam: In the state, PIOs plea that records are missing is normally accepted. Mostly observations are made stating that—PIO seems to have made stringent efforts to locate records. The department is ordered to conduct a time bound enquiry and the case is closed.
Chhattisgarh: Mostly the plea is accepted with directions that PIO should be careful with records in future. However, in some cases, the commission has ordered the Department to fix responsibility and closed the case.
Himachal Pradesh: Since the records are lost, they are not “held” by the PIO, according to RTI Act and therefore, information cannot be provided.
Madhya Pradesh: The Department is directed to fix responsibility and take action as per rules.
Maharashtra Information Commissioner, Vijay Kuvalekar: An information seeker from Sangli (South Maharashtra) found to his delight that a file, considered ‘missing’ for the last 18 years, turned up magically after Pune information commissioner Vijay Kuvalekar pressed the right buttons. The applicant in question had been trying vainly for several years to get Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad Municipal Corporation to share with him records that showed that his housing society included some illegal constructions. He had even moved the court without any luck. The municipal corporation parried every query with the response: ‘The file is missing’. He received the same reply when he filed an RTI application. At the hearing of his second appeal in early 2007, the PIO told Kuvalekar that the file was probably lost during Sangli’s transition from a municipal council to a municipal corporation many years ago. As soon as Kuvalekar directed the PIo to register specific police complaints against all officers who were supposedly in custody of those records, the file came out.

3. Voluminous Information: Some commissioners have rejected appeals on the ground that the information sought is voluminous. The RTI Act does not allow such rejection, and Kerala High Court has clearly said in the judgement Canara Bank vs CIC that RTI Act does not talk of “voluminous information”. If the appellant is prepared to pay fee for information, he should be provided the same.

Section 7(9) reads as:
An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question.

It does not say that an application can be rejected on this ground. The idea is that every effort would be made to assist the appellant to be able to obtain information.

Some commissions and officers reject a request which requires even a small compiling of information quoting section 7(9) saying that they are not required to compile information. However, this seems to be a wrong interpretation of section 7(9). This section clearly states that information shall ordinarily be provided in the form it has been sought. Therefore, ordinarily, the officer would make every effort to provide information in the form sought, even if it requires some amount of compiling. Section 7(9) can be invoked in those rare cases when compiling in the form sought would unnecessarily divert huge government resources.

4. Pending investigations: Many Commissioners have rejected cases on the ground that the investigation is pending. However, the Delhi High Court has clearly said in the case of Bhagat Singh vs Income Tax Department that mere pendency of a case is not sufficient for denial of information. The public authority would need to establish how disclosure of that information would impede investigations.

EFFECTIVENESS

Passing an order in favor of disclosure is not sufficient. It can be termed as effective only when it is implemented and the appellant finally gets satisfactory information. That is the purpose of the Right to Information Act. Therefore, this parameter refers to those cases in which the information commissioner’s orders were complied. It has been calculated as:

Number of feedbacks in which appellant received satisfactory information*100
Total number of cases in which feedback received

Out of 51,128 orders analyzed, orders were passed by Information Commissions in 34,980 cases in favor of disclosure. Letters were written to all these 34,980 cases asking them whether they received satisfactory information after approaching the commission.

An objection has been raised against this parameter by some commissioners stating that some people are never satisfied with the information that they receive or that some people are seeking redressal of their grievances and even if they get complete information, they do not get satisfied till such time their grievance is addressed. We completely agree with them. However we can safely assume that such people would be evenly distributed all over the country and would creep into the feedbacks of all commissioners, this factor would thus even out.

At national level, “Effectiveness” of all the Information Commissions put together is 38%. This means that 62% of the orders remain uncomplied with.

Continuing mandamus: Most Information Commissions follow the practice of closing a case by simply directing an officer to provide information within a week or fortnight. These orders, mostly, remain unimplemented. The appellant keeps writing and visiting the Information Commissions thereafter, but his complaints of non-compliance are rarely attended to.

However, information commissioners of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh follow an important practice. They do not close a case with simple direction to PIO to provide information. They direct the PIO to provide information to the appellant/complainant and post a hearing for another date to discuss compliance of their order. Till such time as the appellant reports satisfaction, the case is not closed and compliance hearings are held.

The fact that this practice has resulted in better compliance is supported by feedback from these states. These states are relatively higher on effectiveness i.e. they were quite effective in getting their orders implemented. That makes a strong case for all Information Commissions to adopt this practice.

Whereas repeated hearings make for a good practice, if done without adequate strictness, it tires out the information seekers. In some cases, appellants had to attend more than 15 hearings spanning over several months.

Most of the cases in these states were closed when the appellant was absent, with the remark: “The appellant is absent. It seems he has got all information. Therefore, the case is closed.” After tiring out an appellant with multiple hearings, the case is closed at the first opportunity when the appellant is absent without intimation.

These repeated compliance hearings need to be coupled with strict implementation of penal powers.

The RTI Act empowers Commissioners to order arrests of errant officials or use force to get information or documents from government departments. Barring Arunachal Pradesh, none of the Commissioners ever used any of these powers.

Some commissioners say that repeated compliance hearings would slow down the process. They are burdened with huge pendency. Interestingly, this argument is not borne out by facts. Each Commissioner in Bihar disposed more than 2000 cases, but tried to seek compliance. On its own, it did not result in high effectiveness because it was not coupled with strong enforcement.

DETERRENT IMPACT:

This is perhaps the only law passed by the Parliament of India which directly places a relationship between the performance of an officer and his salary. It requires an officer to provide information in 30 days, else there is a provision for deduction of his/her salary.

India is one of the very few countries to have a penalty clause. The Parliamentarians realized how difficult it could be to extract information from Indian bureaucracy. Therefore, they introduced the penalty clause.

Whereas the clause says that penalty “shall” be imposed, it does not mean that penalty has to be imposed in every case. The commissioner is required to examine whether there was a reasonable cause for delay or whether there was a malafide in case of denial of information. If no reasonable cause is established or if it is a case of malafide denial of information, in those cases, imposition of penalty is mandatory.

But doesn’t the use of the word “shall” indicate that it is mandatory for the commissioner to enquire into every case of RTI violation?

If the Commissioner orders that information should be provided, it means that complete information was not provided till the time of the order i.e. within the statutory period of 30 days. The Commission, in all such cases, therefore, should require the PIO to show cause why the delay took place. Shouldn’t a show cause notice be issued in all such cases enquiring into the reasons for delay?

At the national level, out of all pro-disclosure cases, show cause notices were issued only in 26% cases.

Maximum show cause notices were issued in Bihar. P N Narayanan issued show cause notices in 98% cases. His colleagues Dr Shakil Ahmed and Justice Shashank Kumar Singh issued penalty show cause notices in more than 90% cases. This means that they issued show cause notice in almost every case in which there was an RTI violation. Though this is laudatory, the follow ups of the notices do not appear encouraging. Penalties were subsequently imposed in a very few cases—in just 2% cases. Rest of the show cause notices were either withdrawn or penalties dropped after imposing.

R Dileep Reddy of Andhra Pradesh; Baijnath Mishra, Harishankar Prasad, Harishchandra Pattar Munda, Prof Praful Kumar Mahato and Ram Bilas Gupta of Jharkhand; Prof Radhamohan of Orissa (he was the Commissioner only for one month during 2008); the entire Commission of Tripura – they did not issue a single penalty show cause notice, despite thousands of cases of delays and denials i.e. they did not even enquire whether there was a reasonable cause for delay or denial was malafide.

In terms of imposition of penalty, combined benches of Orissa imposed penalties in 30% of all pro-disclosure cases, combined benches of Mizoram imposed penalties in 25% cases, combined benches of Nagaland in 22% cases and combined benches of Arunachal Pradesh in 17.5% cases.

The following 25 commissioners did not impose a single penalty:

A Subba Rao, R Dileep Reddy, C D Arha and K S Rao of Andhra Pradesh; combined benches of Tripura; P K Verma and combined benches of Punjab; Radhamohan of Orissa; R K Angousana Singh of Manipur; D C Jugran, Iqbal Ahmed and combined benches of MP; P N Vijayakumar and Dr K Rajagopal of Kerala; combined benches of Karnataka; Shrishtidhar Mahato, Ram Bilas Gupta, Prof Praful Kumar Mahato, Harishchandra Pattar Munda, Harishankar Prasad, Baijnath Mishra from Jharkhand; P S Rana of Himachal Pradesh; Mrs Asha Sharma of Haryana; S N Mishra, M L Sharma, Annapurna Dixit and combined benches of CIC; B K Gohain of Assam.

In terms of commissions, the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Manipur and Assam did not impose a single penalty.

Some commissioners withdraw penalties after imposing them. B K Gohain of Assam imposed penalty in just one case and subsequently withdrew it. P N Narayanan of Bihar imposed penalties in 280 cases but withdrew penalties in 244 cases (he withdrew 87% of the penalties imposed). Dr Shakil Ahmed of Bihar imposed penalties in 65 cases but withdrew in 28 cases (i.e. 43% cases).

Many commissioners issue show cause notices but keep them pending. Sometimes, for years, no action is taken on them. Allegations were made by some people that this creates possibility for wrongdoing by staff as they could negotiate with guilty officers to misplace their files, etc. Whereas possibility of this cannot be ruled out, however, we did not get any specific evidence of that.

More than 70% of the show cause notices issued by the following commissioners remained pending at the end of the year (the following table does not include those commissioners who joined during the year and worked only for a few months or those who retired during the year):

Name of Commissioner	State	Percentage of show cause notices remaining pending at the end of year
A S Rao	Andhra Pradesh	90%
K S Rao	Andhra Pradesh	100%
Shakil Ahmad	Bihar	94%
M M Ansari	CIC	93%
R N Das	Gujarat	76%
P S Rana	Himachal Pradesh	100%
Shrishtidhar Mahato	Jharkhand	100%
H N Krishna	Karnataka	94%
K A Thippeswamy	Karnataka	91%
K K Mishra	Karnataka	87%
Combined Benches of Karnataka	Karnataka	92%
Combined Benches of Kerala	Kerala	91%
Dr K Rajagopal	Kerala	90%
P N Vijayakumar	Kerala	93%
Palat Mohandas	Kerala	79%
Combined Benches of MP	MP	92%
D C Jugran	MP	100%
Iqbal Ahmad	MP	100%
Mahesh Pandey	MP	81%
P P Tiwari	MP	93%
Naveen Kumar	Maharashtra	89%
Ramanand Tiwari	Maharashtra	91%
R K Angousana Singh	Manipur	100%
Arun Kumar Bhattacharya	WB	75%

Many commissioners have argued that imposition of penalties would not improve compliance. There are two arguments against such a stand:

Violation of RTI Act has been treated as an offense by the Parliament. Whether it would help RTI or not is outside the jurisdiction of commissioners to comment. For instance, can we say that section 302 of IPC has been able to stop murders or whether punishments prescribed for rapes has been able to stop rapes? These sections in IPC may not have been able to stop these crimes completely, but they definitely act as huge deterrents. Some people say that Rs 25,000 penalty is so small that it would have no impact. It is not the quantum of punishment but its certainty and swiftness that acts as a deterrent. Therefore, if every PIO knows that he would be penalized if he violated RTI Act, it would certainly help.
Arunachal’s example clearly establishes the importance of penalty clause. Arunachal Pradesh imposed penalties on 25 officers in 45 cases in 2006-07. They have consistently been imposing high number of penalties on guilty officials. Coupled with continuing mandamus, it has ensured high level of compliance for Arunachal Pradesh.

OVERALL PUBLIC SATISFACTION (OPS)

This factor, in a way is a combination of Pro-Disclosure and Effectiveness parameters. If 100 people approached an information commissioner, if pro-disclosure orders were passed in 70 cases, out of these, 26 finally got information. This is the OPS.

Detailed Methodology and Analysis of Performance ofInformation Commissions