Almost two decades after the passage of the Right to Information Act, it is quite clear that governments, at least parts of them, are unhappy with the idea of ​​transparency and empowerment associated with it. Changes that weaken the effectiveness of the law and attempts to circumvent it by delaying or withholding information have been widespread for years. Another way to undermine the law is to paralyze the work of information commissions at the central and state levels. The issue has resurfaced as India’s Supreme Court questioned the large number of vacancies in the central and some state information commissions. These commissions receive complaints from members of the public who have been denied access to information or who have failed to obtain a response from designated information officers in various departments and institutions. A division bench has taken note of eight vacancies of information commissioners in the Central Information Commission (CIC) and 23,000 appeals pending before it. In fact, some state-level information commissions are almost non-existent due to a lack of members to consult the public. Every court must ask itself, as the Court has now done, how an institution can be useful if it does not have people to perform the functions required by law.

The court has sought to add some urgency to the matter by ordering the Ministry of Personnel and Training to finalize the timelines for completion of the selection process and announce the appointments of the eight information officers in the CIC within two weeks. Details of the search committee and the list of applicants for the positions were also sought. Likewise, states that have initiated the appointment process but do not have a specific timeline have been asked to complete the process within a certain time. However, this may not be enough to revive the fulfillment of the law’s original purpose. In addition to filling vacancies, not all governments have complied with a 2019 court ruling that called for proactive efforts to fill vacancies in a timely manner through early advertising. The post of CIC was stripped of its autonomy a few years ago when the government abolished the fixed five-year term and made the term permanent. Not much has been done to appoint candidates from different walks of life as retired officials continue to be selected, a point noted by the bench in the recent hearing. It is inevitable that a large number of job vacancies will create a huge backlog and ultimately discourage people from seeking information. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that this is what those in power want.