Telangana high court suspends information commission notice on RTI appeals

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Thursday criticised the State Information Commission for the manner in which it sought to handle over 400 pending RTI appeals filed by RTI activist Vaddam Shyam.Justice T Madhavi Devi, hearing a lunch motion petition, suspended the Commission’s notice that directed Shyam to appear on Thursday in connection with 403 second appeals he filed earlier.The Court observed that the Commission acted arbitrarily by issuing a single omnibus notice without disclosing the individual case numbers or specifying which matters were listed for hearing. The Commission’s attempt to club all 403 cases for the same day was found to be procedurally improper and unfair to the appellant, the Court observed.When the Commission’s counsel argued that the Commission routinely listed some of the appeals every day, the Court remarked that it was “neither feasible nor permissible for the Commission to hear all the appeals at once," and faulted the issuance of vague notices that left the petitioner uncertain about which cases were being taken up.Agreeing with the petitioner’s contention, the Court suspended the notice and directed the Information Commission to issue fresh notices clearly mentioning the case numbers and specifying the dates of hearing for each matter.