Government officers in the country who ignore the mandate to disclose under the Right to Information (RTI) Act don’t stand to lose anything. A survey has found only two of every 100 violations of the Act by officials get penalised.
And, only 39 per cent of all applications seeking information finally lead to any information being provided.
The survey, done by the National RTI Awards Secretariat, a non-government initiative, which has undertaken independent ranking of Information Commissions in the country, has put its finger on the main problem. Which is that orders of RTI commissioners are not implemented.
Arvind Kejriwal, who partnered the survey, said in 61 per cent of cases where an RTI commissioner passed an order to provide information, just no one obeyed. The overall imposition of penalty was so low that it was losing its deterrent value, he told Business Standard.
“The question is, what is the incentive or disincentive for an officer in this country, riddled with corruption, to provide information?” he asked.
He said of the 94 Chief Information Commissioners (ICs)in the country, Orissa's D N Padhi scored the highest points, by imposing penalty in 11 per cent cases of violation of the Act by government officials.
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But state-wise, Meghalaya scored higher as a whole, by imposing penalties in 25 per cent of all such cases. And, Karnataka’s Information Commission stood at the top, with a score of 55 per cent in Overall Public Satisfaction (OPS).
More than 51,000 orders passed by ICs in 2008 were analysed but that did not include Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim, he told reporters in Chennai.
“Uttar Pradesh did not provide copies of their orders, saying it didn’t have them. While Tamil Nadu, which claimed to have passed more than 40,000 orders, provided us with copies of only 900 orders. Sikkim did not furnish the list of address of all appellants,” he said. Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Orissa and Assam were the top states, with OPS ranging between 37 and 55 per cent, according to the report.
The ranking was done based on effectiveness, imposition of penalties and pro-disclosure factor, which determines whether the order was in favour of the applicant or not.
Kejriwal said the solution was not to amend the Act but to take steps to implement the law as effectively as possible.