Tamil Nadu RTI Portal Outage Blocks Appeals and Order Access for Over 10 Days
In Chennai, thousands of Right to Information (RTI) appellants are facing significant hurdles as the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission's official website has been inaccessible for more than 10 days. This outage is severely impacting their ability to check the cause list and access orders online, creating a major bottleneck in the transparency process.
Appeal Filing Process Disrupted
Under the RTI Act, the initial plea and first appeal can be submitted via the state government's e-governance portal, rtionline.tn.gov.in. However, the second appeal must be filed exclusively on the information commission's website. The prolonged unavailability of this site has left many appellants stranded, unable to proceed with their cases.
Mahendran Thiagarajan, Chennai coordinator of the 'Ten Rupee Movement'—an anti-corruption campaign—highlighted a critical issue: "Though the RTI Act does not explicitly mention it, the commission demands the appeal be filed in a specific format, which can be downloaded only from its website. So, keeping the website down for 10 days is not acceptable."
Specific Cases Affected
Activist Akbar Ahmed shared his frustration, stating he has been unable to access an order dated February 16 issued by Chief Information Commissioner Shakeel Akhter. This order pertains to the implementation of the National Human Rights Commission's directives. "Chengalpet collectorate furnished wrong information for my appeal. I filed a complaint petition. It was heard on Feb 16, but I couldn't read the order since the website is down," he explained.
Recurring Technical Issues
This marks the second instance in six months where the web portal has been down for over 10 days. Managed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which also oversees other government sites, the commission's website serves as the sole gateway for accessing appeal orders and the cause list. The cause list is essential for appellants to determine if their appeals are scheduled for hearings and to request video conferencing options when physical attendance is not possible.
Officials from the information commission have attributed the downtime to maintenance, assuring that the site will be reactivated soon. However, the repeated and extended outages raise concerns about the reliability of digital governance tools critical for public access to information.
