http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Over-13300-cases-disposed-off-by-CIC-/articleshow/4753941.cms
"Chavan also said Government has advised the Commission that decision on complaints and appeals should be taken by the Central information Commission as defined in Section 2 (b) of the RTI Act, 2005 and not by Benches of the Commission." "The Right to Information Act, 2005 does not contain any provision for the constitution of Benches," Chavan said." What exactly does this mean ? How will if affect citizens ? The DoPT stand is that there is no (explicit) provision in the Act for benches and that the CIC is a "collective body" defined in 12(1) of RTI Act to only perform those functions assigned to it UNDER the Act. OTH the CIC's stand is that all powers / authority of the Commission vest solely in the Chief Information Commissioner as per 12(4), and that the other IC's are only his "assistants" - deriving their powers by delegation from the Chief's. Obviously this stand has not gone down very well the IC(Tiwari) and IC(SM) - both former powerful DoPT bosses (unlike Mr.H who only had an insignifcant Panchayati Raj to lord it over). So now you know :-) Citizens need not be bothered, nobody listens to the CIC in any case. Sarbajit
