Cripple and scuttle: On vacancies in Information Commissions

The article highlights a systemic erosion of the Right to Information Act, revealing that government entities often resist transparency through deliberate obstruction. By allowing critical vacancies in Information Commissions to persist and ignoring timely appointment protocols, authorities effectively cripple these oversight bodies. This lack of staffing creates massive backlogs, denying citizens their legal right to access public records and undermining the democratic empowerment the law was designed to foster. Furthermore, structural changes have weakened the independence of these commissions, such as removing fixed tenures to increase government control. The continued preference for appointing retired civil servants rather than diverse candidates suggests a bias toward protecting bureaucratic secrecy. The Supreme Court’s recent interventions, while urgent, address only the symptom of vacancy rather than the deeper institutional rot. Without substantive reform, these commissions remain unable to function as effective checks on administrative power. This situation is highly relevant to open data advocates because it demonstrates that technical availability of information is insufficient without robust institutional safeguards. When oversight mechanisms are hollowed out, even well-designed open data initiatives can be stifled by bureaucratic inertia or active suppression. True openness requires not just data publication, but independent bodies capable of enforcing transparency and punishing non-compliance. The decline of these commissions serves as a stark warning that legal frameworks for open data are only as strong as the political will to support them.

Source: thehindu.com
Published on 2025-01-09

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