Central Information Commission should give priority-hearing to Senior Citizens and petitions filed under Life and Liberty with petitions clubbed where petitioner and respondent are same

Central Information Commission (CIC) should revive system of priority-hearings on petitions filed by Senior Citizens and on petitions filed under Life and Liberty. A day in the week can be fixed when al the benches may take up such petitions when non-compliance petitions on CIC-verdicts may also be taken up. Rather it is violation of RTI Act if petitions relating to Life and Liberty are not taken up within 48 hours of their being filed.

CIC-verdicts at times lose their relevance when public authorities become fearless for not complying CIC verdicts because of non-existence of any such system at CIC.

Such petitions where both petitioner and respondent are same, should be clubbed together irrespective of their dates of being filed for saving precious man-hours and resources of all concerned including public-authorities, petitioners and even of Central Information Commissioners and their staffers.

CIC should be complimented for initiating welcome practice to invite comments on petitions filed soon after petitions are registered at CIC. Experience reveals that after start of such a system, in many cases, petitioners do not come for attending CIC-hearings resulting in early disposals of such cases.

New CIC-website is welcome but has some teething problems like in registering of petitioners for logging-in for lodging submissions etc on CIC-website. It would have been better if opening page of CIC-website would also have been given a new attractive look.