Justice without a hearing

RTI COMPLETES ONE YEAR PART-I

The Right to Information Act (RTI) will complete one year on October 12, but at the Central Information Commission (CIC), 50 per cent of the cases await a hearing. The CIC is the highest court of appeal visualised by the RTI.

And nearly 70 per cent of the cases have been disposed of without a hearing.

This unusual method of delivering justice has only evoked mixed reactions. N K Sethi, an appellant, was surprised recently to see the CIC order on his appeal against Indian Trade Promotion Organisation without being called for a single hearing.

He was in constant touch with the commission personally, on telephone and through e-mail to know about the proceedings.

"On June 12, I sent an e-mail to the commissioner. Then suddenly on June 13, I saw on the CIC website that decision on my appeal had been given on June 12 without giving me the chance of a personal hearing. I was shocked to see my appeal being rejected ""when I was not even called," he said.

Out of the 800 cases heard by the commissioners, 353 cases were disposed by them without calling the appellant. "Out of 1,531 cases, 71 per cent were disposed without being giving an opportunity of being heard to the appellant," Parivartan, an NGO working on RTI, said.

The commission is of the opinion that hearing every case will slow down the disposal rate. Information commissioner Prof M M Ansari said, "We can dispose the case on the basis of the submission or hold the hearing which is not a compulsion. If the case does not require (a hearing), why trouble a person to come all the way to Delhi?"

"Sometimes the appellants don't turn up. Several applications ask for personal information, which we do not entertain. Anyway there is no case in which there was a request for hearing and we did not fall in line," he added.

Magsaysay award winner Arvind Kejriwal contests this point. "The commission is not to dispose cases but to dispense justice. They cannot refuse a hearing on the ground that it would slow down their disposal rate. What if the courts start following this? Also, our analysis shows that not hearing an appellant increases workload rather than decreasing it. Almost every such appellant files a review petition, thus increasing commission's workload."

Five information commissioners sharing various central ministries and departments under them dispose of the cases which range from 50 to 90 applications per day. This is leading to a waiting list of several months at CIC. But, CIC Wajahat Habibullah is optimistic.

"Earlier we took four months to dispose but now it has come down to two months and we are still improving," he said.

But on the disposal of cases without a hearing, the CIC is not apologetic.

Of the 3,059 cases received by CIC till first week of September, the commission website details 800 cases only, while it has disposed 1,531 cases. NGOs allege that the balance 731 cases were rejected without any hearing by the staff themselves. According to CIC, these cases were not found fit for admission.

"Many of the appellants seek opinion and some reach CIC without going to the first appellate authority, so they don't stand in the commission and we inform them the same," L C Singhi, joint secretary, CIC said.