Mumbai: Newly appointed chief information commissioner Rahul Pande on Monday said that the biggest challenge before him will be to dispose of all the 79,392 appeals before the information commissioners across the state in a time-bound manner.
Along with the swearing-in of Pande on April 21, the state govt has filled up all the vacant posts of information commissioners. The post of CIC was lying vacant for a prolonged period. The posts of information commissioners for Amravati, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Nashik were lying vacant for a period ranging from one to three years.

As per the notification issued on Monday, Pande will be CIC for Mumbai (HQ), Pradip Vyas for Mumbai, Shekhar Channe for Konkan, Makrand Ranade for Pune, Bhupendra Gurav for Nashik, Ravindra Thakre for Amravati, Prakash Indalkar for Sambhaji Nagar and Gajanan Nimdeo for Nagpur. Earlier, Ranade was holding additional charge for Sambhajinagar, Gurav was holding additional charge for Nagpur and Channe was holding additional charge for Amravati.
Pande was first appointed information commissioner for Nagpur on Oct 7, 2021 to Oct 6, 2024, then he was given additional charge for Sambhajinagar and now, he has taken over as CIC on April 21. “RTI is a landmark legislation for providing justice to common man. As a CIC, we will ensure that the legislation is implemented in letter and spirit. We expect that once the first appeal is filed, it should be disposed of within 90 days. Even the Supreme Court has expressed the view that the appeals cannot be kept in abeyance for a prolonged period, otherwise there will be massive delay in providing justice to people,” Pande said.
In his first tenure as Nagpur and Sambhajinagar information commissioner, Rahul Pande had given landmark orders, which were upheld by the high court. In Sambhajinagar, Pandey found that a few persons were filing vexatious petitions with an objective to harass the district and state administration. “Pande took note of such appeals and disposed them of as per the provisions of the RTI Act,” a colleague of the CIC said.
Veteran bureaucrat Suresh Joshi was the first CIC, from April 12, 2005, to April 11, 2010. He was followed by Ratnakar Gaikwad and Sumit Mullick. Before the appointment of Pande, retired forest officer Sumit Vishwas was acting CIC. The tenure of Gaikwad was marked by landmark orders.