Facts:
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Currently, there are four vacancies in the Central Information Commission, though more than 23,500 appeals and complaints are pending.
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The Andhra Pradesh Commission is completely non-functional as not a single information commissioner has been appointed.
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The Maharashtra Commission which has a backlog of more than 40,000 appeals and complaints, has four vacancies.
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The Kerala Commission is functioning with only a single commissioner and has more than 14,000 pending appeals and complaints.
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Similarly, there are six vacancies in the Karnataka Commission even though nearly 33,000 appeals and complaints are pending.
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The West Bengal Commission is functioning with only two commissioners and is currently hearing appeals/complaints filed 10 years ago.
Petition filed in SC:
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The effective functioning of information commissioners, the final adjudicators under the RTI Act, is critical for the health of the transparency regime in the country, the petition said.
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The petition said that due to non-appointment of information commissioners, several information commissions take many months, and in some cases even years, to decide on appeals and complaints due to accumulation of pending appeals/complaints, defeating the entire object of the RTI Act, 2005.