Former Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi today said that the Right to Information Act was being "strangled" due to the neglect of the state government.
Gandhi has written a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asking him to fill the vacancies in the Information Commission in the state.
"RTI is slowly being strangled in Maharashtra by not appointing information commissioners. In Maharashtra, there is vacancy of one Chief Information Commissioner and three commissioners. These are not being filled despite repeated reminders," Gandhi stated in his letter to Fadnavis.
Gandhi said that the pendency at all the commissions was now alarming and it was in turn killing the objective of the Act which was transparency.
Sharing the figures of 31,474 pending cases in four regions, Gandhi said, "Nashik region has 9,931 pending cases, Pune has 8,647 cases, Amravati 8,026 cases and Mumbai(HQ) has 4,870 cases pending. These cases are languishing for the want of information commissioners."
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