There was a growing tendency among PIOs to not follow the law as they were not fined, and the commis­sion was responsible for the trend.  As per provisions of section 20 (1) of the RTI Act, 2005. if the SIC is of the opinion that a public information officer has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for information, or has not furnished information within the

She has alleged time and again that the State Information Commis­sion (SIC) has caused a loss of crores of rupees to the state exchequer as public information officers (PIOs) were not fined in most of the cases. She added that even when the fine was levied in a few cases, the amount was not recovered from PIOs. Hence, there was no deterrence among PIOs and they were avoiding giving information.

She demanded that the SIC fine erring PIOs and ensure that the fines be recovered. The related information should be published on the website of the commission also. In June 11, Urvashi had sent a memorandum to the Governor of Uttar Pradesh which was subsequently forwarded for action to the Administrative Reforms Department(ARD) of U.P. government.

ARD happens to be the Nodal department for RTI related affairs in U.P. ARD and UPSIC had written to Urvashi in this matter.The reply of ARD and the accounts of the SIC in Lucknow for the period from March 2006 to March 2011, show that 160580 cases were filed before the commission under the RTI Act. Of these, the erring PIOs were fined only in 827 cases. That  is a meager 0.5% meaning thereby that in 99.5% cases the PIOs were not fined at all.

Further analysis of facts show that the commission had levied penalties totaling Rs189 Lakhs  in these 827 cases but only 3 lakh of the amount has been recovered in 19 cases so far . That means less than 2% recovery of penalty money meaning thereby that more than 98% of penalty money is yet to be recovered.

A bucketful of leniency altogether exhibited by the UPSIC, ARD and the State Level Committee ( SLC ) towards the  government departments does not augur well for RTI implementation in Uttar Pradesh where effective implementation of RTI act is already marred by official apathy.

When a team of SCIC of the stature of  the Election Commissioner, ten SICs of the stature of  the Chief Secretary of the state government, Complete Administrative Reforms Department of State Government and the Chief Secretary as Head of SLC ( formed with the sole target of recovering RTI penalties) are altogether unable to deliver results despite there being three meeting of SLC with the fourth one due in near future and there being correspondence  from Principal Secretary of ARD to his counterparts in all other departments on 25-08-10 , 29-06-11& 21-07-11. This is nothing but willful apathy of Uttar Pradesh Government functionaries along with UPSIC, which is sending RTI in doldrums in U.P.