Activist rues Odisha Info Commission’s failure
The disposal rate of RTI applications by the Odisha Information Commission remains a cause of concern for intellectuals, RTI activists and petitioners in the State.
While Chief Election Commissioner (CIC) Tarun Kanti Mishra devotes only 13 days for hearing in a month on an average, Information Commissioner Pramod Kumar Mohanty spends just 16 days. This was exposed through an RTI application filed by RTI activist Pradip Pradhan.
On an average, the CIC heard just 11 cases and disposed of just five cases per day, whereas PK Mohanty heard 11 cases and disposed of six cases per day in last six months, he revealed.
“It shows that the Information Commissioners are hearing very low number of cases per day which proves their inefficiency and incapacity. It has been observed that the Commissioners at the early stage of their appointment were making very slow hearing of the similar number of the cases,” said RTI activist Pradhan.
Interestingly, despite a few number of days being devoted for hearing, the Commissioners just devote two hours per day for hearing on an average, exposed the RTI activist.
According to the RTI report while CEC Mishra devoted a total of 73 days and heard 870 cases disposing of 409 cases in last six months, Mohanty devoted 98 days for hearing and disposed of 607 cases out of total 1,125.
The petitioner said, “Finding long delay in the hearing of the cases and huge pendency of the cases in the Commission, I tried to explore the reason behind it and submitted RTI application on April 28 this year to the Information Commission PIO seeking information about number days devoted by the Commission and cases disposed of per month from November 2013 to April, 2014. The information provided by the PIO on May 27, 2014 really is a matter of shame,” said Pradhan, who demanded that the two Information Commissioners be removed at the earliest.