PIOs fined in just 5% of potential RTI Act violation cases, study states

The report showed that the penalty levied was just Rs 3.12 crore

In the past one year, penalty was levied in only 5,805 instances for denying information while violating the provisions of the RTI Act; but more importantly those instances accounted for just 5 per cent of the cases where violations occurred, according to a report on the country’s transparency regime.

The ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India 2021-22’, released by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), showed that 24 Information Commissions provided data on penalty levied on erring officials between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

The report also showed that the penalty levied was just Rs 3.12 crore, and one-third of it was imposed by the Karnataka State Information Commission, which collected fines of Rs 1.04 crore in 1,265 instances.

According to Section 20 of RTI Act, a penalty of up to Rs 25,000 could be imposed on PIOs (Public Information Officers) if they deny or delay providing information without any reasonable cause, or knowingly give incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, or destroy information which was subject of any request or obstruct in any manner the furnishing of information.

Also Read | The dismal state of transparency in Indian governance

However, the report claimed, the Information Commissions imposed penalty in an “extremely small fraction” of the cases in which penalty could be imposed.

“In fact, commissions appear to be reluctant to even ask the PIOs to give their justification for not complying with the law,” the report stated.

“Non imposition of penalties in deserving cases by commissions sends a signal to public authorities that violating the law will not invite any serious consequences. This destroys the basic framework of incentives built into the RTI law and promotes a culture of impunity,” it said.

Show cause notices were issued in only 3,887 instances, according to information available from 15 state commissions. States like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh did not maintain data on show cause notices issued, while Gujarat said they did not issue a single notice but levied penalty in 118 cases.

In terms of penalty imposition, the report said, Karnataka was followed by Madhya Pradesh which imposed Rs 47.50 lakh penalty in 222 cases.

Referring to a previous assessment that found that 59 per cent orders had recorded violations by PIOs, the report said if this estimate is used, the penalty could be potentially imposed in 1.08 lakh cases disposed of by the Information Commissions in the last one year.

“Penalties were therefore imposed only in 5 per cent of the cases where penalties were potentially imposable. The Information Commissions did not impose penalties in 95 per cent of the cases where penalties were imposable,” the report said.

2018’s ‘Assessment of Orders of the Central Information Commission (CIC)’ study had stated that Information Commissions might not have imposed a fine of around Rs 203 crore on erring officials, “thus putting in question deterrence value that such penalties were supposed to have provided”.