The State Information Commission was reprimanded by the Telangana High Court for asking a petitioner to appear for the hearing of 404 RTI appeals on a single day.
Justice T Madhavi Devi stated that while clearing cases quickly is important, it is impractical to expect hundreds of appeals to be heard simultaneously. She deemed the Commission’s notice “unreasonable” and set it aside.
The court heard a petition filed by RTI activist V Shyam, who had submitted 404 appeals to the Commission after allegedly not receiving proper responses to his applications. On September 11, the Commission had issued a notice , asking him to appear on September 18 with all relevant details.
Shyam objected to this in a High Court petition on the grounds that the notice was arbitrary.
At the time of hearing, the government lawyer told the court that the post of Chief Information Commissioner has been lying vacant for one and half years, thus there was a pile up of over 17,000 cases.
He noted that, in addition to Shyam’s 404 appeals, two other applicants had filed 980 and 832 appeals, respectively. In an effort to comply with earlier High Court directives to clear pending cases within a specific timeframe, the Commission had attempted to group these cases for a single hearing.
But the judge raised an eyebrow at the feasibility of disposing of hundreds of cases at one sitting and also indicated that notice without case numbers was not valid. She set aside the September 11 notice and asked the Commission to give fresh notices with exact case details. The petition was then shut.
The Commission made public that three applicants alone had put in almost 2,500 RTI appeals in different departments. These were:
• Srinivas Reddy, who asked for budgetary allocation and expenditure details from the Finance Department.
• Vadde Shyam, who asked for information from the Municipal Administration Department about building permits and occupancy certificates.
• Mohammed Ashraf, who asked for data from the School Education, Home, and Revenue Departments.
A bench of five commissioners, led by the Chief Information Commissioner, reviewed these appeals as part of an effort to clear the pending RTI cases, which led to significant backlog.
In a similar, yet different event, the central information commission had said that information regarding the licensing and suspension status of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes used for potable water must be disclosed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, as it is a matter of grave public health concern.
HDPE piping systems have been used for municipal water applications for over 50 years and their quality is of prime importance for ensuring passage of safe potable drinking water to cities and towns.
RTI applicant Mahesh Mamindla had sought the license status and details of any suspension or revocation concerning Vijaya Polymers India Pvt Ltd, a licensee of BIS, which manufactures polyethylene pipes for potable water supplies.
CIC Heeralal Samariya noted in his order, that the data requested in the RTI application is crucial for “protecting public health and preventing the use of substandard HDPE pipes.” He held that the public interest in disclosing this information outweighs any harm to commercial or personal interests which are protected under Sections 8(1)(d) and 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
CIC Samariya directed the CPIO to revisit the RTI application and provide the requested details of suspension notices as available in the records.
After reviewing the case and hearing both parties, CIC Samariya concluded that the requested information — particularly concerning the suspension and revocation of the licence — is in the public interest. Since these HDPE pipes are used in critical applications such as supplying drinking water, disclosure of such information is essential for ensuring public safety.
The commission held that public interest in transparency overrides the exemptions claimed under Sections 8(1)(d) and 8(1)(j). Accordingly, the PIO has been ordered to provide the relevant information as specified in the RTI application.
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