Over 3.85 lakh cases are pending in 28 information commissions across India, with 14 commissions having an estimated waiting time of one year or more to dispose a matter, according to an annual report by non-government organisation Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS).

The ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India, 2025-26’ said the number of appeals and complaints pending on June 30, 2026, in 28 information commissions stood at 3,85,716. Data for the Meghalaya State Information Commission (SIC) was not available for the particular period at the time of compilation. The number of pending complaints on June 30, 2025, in 29 information commissions was 4,13,972.

Maharashtra SIC had the highest number of appeals and complaints pending in the country at 77,397, followed by the Chhattisgarh SIC at 52,559 (as of December 10, 2025), Bihar at 42,243, and the Central Information Commission (CIC) at 39,121 (compared to 24,102 on June 30, 2025).

Maharashtra registered the highest number of appeals and complaints (55,201), followed by the CIC (31,179), Uttar Pradesh (30,258), Tamil Nadu (22,946), and Karnataka (20,952). Maharashtra disposed the highest number of cases (54,985), followed by the SICs of Karnataka (38,656), Tamil Nadu (23,808), and Uttar Pradesh (21,528), and the CIC (17,319).

Of the 23 commissions that provided relevant information, nine had returned appeals/complaints without passing any orders between July 2025 and June 30, 2026, the report said. “The CIC returned 14,603 appeals/complaints while it registered 31,179 during the period under review,” it said.

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“The estimated time required for disposal of an appeal/complaint in the CIC was found to be 2 years & 3 months,” said the report, attributing the delays to vacancies in commissions and “tardy rate” of disposal.

No appeals/complaints were disposed by the Jharkhand SIC during the period under review. “The Jharkhand SIC has also stopped registering new appeals/complaints,” it said.

“The Himachal Pradesh SIC has been defunct since July 3, 2025, till the time of publication of these findings (October 2026). The SIC of Rajasthan…stated that the information is available in the annual report, however the annual reports for the period under review (July 2025 till June 2026) had not yet been published,” it said.