The wheels of justice grind slowly in India. Each tier of the Indian judiciary, especially the lower courts, is groaning under the bulk of cases. However, the judiciary is not the only institution battling the spectre of pendency. Several other bodies that constitute the wide and diverse ecosystem of accountability are afflicted with a similar problem. Consider the edifice of the Right to Information. The RTI Act, now in its seventeenth year of existence, was conceived as a potent weapon to usher in the spirit of transparency in a polity notorious for obfuscation. Unfortunately, much like the judiciary, the RTI framework is working at a snail’s pace. The reason, as is evident from a recent report by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan, is not exactly novel: an inertia to keep the RTI nimble and productive. The data gleaned from the Information Commissions are rather chastening. The total number of pending appeals and complains is 3,14,323 in 2022, up from 2,18,347 three years ago. This is only to be expected, given the reduced strength of most of the Information Commissions. A number of the Commissions, including the Central Information Commission, are functioning without their stipulated number of personnel; West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Manipur lack the designated chiefs; shockingly, the Information Commissions of Jharkhand and Tripura are alleged to be completely defunct.

Worse, these are not the only problems hobbling the RTI infrastructure. Budgetary constraints are not uncommon. The sum allocated to the CIC and RTI in 2021 was reported to be 44 per cent lower than the allocation in the previous year. India’s whistleblowers also lead perilous lives, as revealed by the frequent harassment and even deaths of RTI activists. The Narendra Modi government, which came to power with a purported pledge to rid corruption, has been accused of diluting the RTI Act through a series of amendments that seek to curb the autonomy of officials. Taken together, all this points to the absence of political will to inject accountability into public offices — one of the basic imperatives of a democracy. Removing the road blocks that adversely affect the Information Commissions is the need of the hour. This, in turn, would bring down the pendency of appeals. Turning the RTI platform into a toothless machinery goes against the public right to demand transparency of opaque systems of power.