RTI Act turns 21: Commissions choke on backlog, appeals in Tripura, MP may be decided in 2046

New Delhi: An appeal filed today under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in Tripura and Madhya Pradesh will be disposed of in 2046, while one filed in Chhattisgarh will be decided in 2045, an independent annual study of information commissions has found.

As the RTI Act completes 21 years of implementation on Monday (October 12), an annual study conducted by Satark Nagrik Sangathan on the functioning of information commissions has revealed that 12 of the 25 commissions, including the Central Information Commission (CIC), have a waiting period of one year or more for the disposal of appeals. Two commissions — Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh — are defunct, with no commissioners appointed and no cases being accepted, according to the study.

Ironically, Rajasthan, the state where the demand for RTI legislation took shape, did not provide information on the disposal of appeals. The study found that Tripura has the longest waiting period at 19 years and eight months, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 19 years and two months, and Chhattisgarh at 18 years. Gujarat and Karnataka have the shortest waiting period of one month.


The backlog of appeals and complaints has declined slightly compared with last year. The study found that the number of pending appeals and complaints across 29 information commissions stood at 4,13,972 as of June 30, 2025, compared with 3,85,716 as of June 30 this year. The Maharashtra State Information Commission had the highest number of pending appeals and complaints, at 77,397. It was followed by the Chhattisgarh State Information Commission with 52,559, Bihar with 42,243 and the CIC with 39,121. The CIC backlog increased significantly from 24,102 on June 30, 2025, to 39,121 as of June 30 this year.

The study also flagged the large number of appeals and complaints being returned. Interestingly, the CIC, the final appellate authority for central government ministries and autonomous bodies, returned the highest number of appeals, rejecting nearly one-third of those received.

“CIC returned 14,603 appeals/complaints while it registered 31,179 during the period under review — nearly one-third of the appeals/complaints received were returned. For the calendar year 2024, CIC website data showed that 38% of the appeals/complaints received were returned by the commission,” the study observed.

The study found that 95% of the appeals returned by CIC were not filed again. After CIC, Maharashtra and Bihar returned the highest number of appeals.

“The Maharashtra SIC returned 14,140 appeals/complaints, while it registered 55,201 cases — 20% of the appeals/complaints received were returned,” the study said. “Though the RTI Act does not prescribe any format for filing an appeal/complaint, the central government and some states have, through their respective rules, prescribed formats and a list of documents that must accompany each appeal/complaint. Further, some of these rules, like those framed by the central government, empower the commission to return the appeal/complaint if found deficient,” the study observed.