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Anjali Bhardwaj & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2019 INSC 210Decided 15 Feb 2019
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 436 of 2018
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice S. Abdul Nazeer

Background

RTI activists filed a public interest writ petition under Article 32 pointing out that the Central Information Commission (CIC) and several State Information Commissions (SICs), the bodies that hear appeals when citizens are denied information under the RTI Act, had huge numbers of unfilled Commissioner posts (the CIC alone had four vacancies and over 23,500 pending cases), causing backlogs stretching into years. The petitioners also alleged a lack of transparency in how Information Commissioners were selected and appointed, which had spawned further litigation challenging specific appointments. They asked the Court to direct the Union and several state governments to urgently and transparently fill these vacancies and to start selection processes well before vacancies actually arise.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court went state-by-state and examined the vacancy and pendency figures for the CIC and the SICs of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland, West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha, and Telangana, issuing specific, time-bound directions for each: such as ordering some states to complete pending selection processes within one to two months and to fill newly recommended additional posts within four to six months. The Court also laid down general directions applicable to the CIC and all SICs going forward: that the process of filling a vacancy should begin 1-2 months before it actually arises so there is no gap in functioning; that all information about the selection process (advertisements, applications, Selection Committee composition) must be published on official websites for transparency; and that, per the Court's earlier ruling in Union of India v. Namit Sharma, Information Commissioners must be genuinely eminent persons with expertise across the varied fields the RTI Act contemplates (law, science, journalism, management, etc.), not drawn only from retired government officials. The writ petition was disposed of with these directions, while petitioners were given liberty to return to the Court if the directions were not complied with.

Lesson Learnt

The right to information is only as good as the institutions that enforce it: the Supreme Court recognized that leaving Information Commissioner posts vacant for long periods effectively defeats citizens' statutory right to get a timely answer when their RTI request is refused, and set concrete, enforceable timelines to prevent governments from quietly starving these bodies of staff.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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