SCIC to hold hearings through video conferencing

Pune bench receives around 30 second appeals: Data

In order to reduce the load of second appeals in Pune, State Chief Information Commissioner  (SCIC) Ratnakar Gaikwad will be holding a special hearing for the Pune bench. Gaikwad would be hearing 612 cases from August 1  via video-conferencing.

Pune’s bench of SIC as of date has 6,986 second appeals pending before it. The oldest appeal dates back to 2011. After the retirement of SCIC Vijay Kuvalekar, the bench was vacant for months during which the appeals piled up. MH Shaha was appointed as the SIC Pune, but again cases piled up following his illness. SIC Aurangabad DB Deshpande, had briefly held the charge, post which Amravati SIC Ravindra Jadhav was given the charge. Jadhav has recently been appointed as the full time commissioner of Pune.

Pune’s bench handles the second appeals from Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur and Kolhapur districts. Of these  Pune, Sangli and Solapur have maximum number of appeals pending. Also of the six SIC benches, Pune has by far the largest number of second appeals.

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Data shows that every month, Pune bench receives around 30 second appeals. Due to the absence of any full time SIC, the number of fresh appeals had gone down a bit, however, with the appointment of a full time commissioner the numbers are expected to go up again.

Officials of Pune bench said the cases have been selected serially for hearing and are from all the five districts of the bench. During the time, period, SIC Jadhav will be continuing his normal hearings.