Our elected representatives seek information on a wide variety of topics from the Union Government when Parliament is in session. Ministers respond verbally on the floor of the House to only a handful of them. These are called Starred Questions. In response to the Unstarred Questions, which run into thousands, the Government only tables written replies without responding to them verbally. The text of the MPs' queries and the concerned ministry/department's replies are uploaded on the respective House websites.
These replies contain a wealth of information and statistical data about the activities of government and other public sector agencies. Often, the media reports only on a handful of these queries and replies which they think might be of interest to their readers. They are rarely subjected to cross-verification because the media is busy with reporting emergent newsworthy stories, everyday, and most of our academic institutions are not yet geared to take up this task. However, concerned citizens can make use of RTI to cross verify the government's claims contained in its replies. This is the story of one such RTI intervention.
Background to the RTI Intervention
In December 2025, two MPs sought information about case pendency in the tribunals established by Central laws. While replying to the Unstarred Questions raised by the DMK Lok Sabha MP from Perambalur, Tamil Nadu, Thiru Arun Nehru, and the AITMC MP in the Rajya Sabha Shri Derek O'Brien, the Union Minister for Law and Justice tabled case disposal and pendency data pertaining to 16 major tribunals. A news report published in an English language daily put the total pendency at five lakh cases. Embedded in the data table covering tribunals such as NCLT, NCLAT, TDSAT, ITAT, NGT, DRTs, DRAT, CESTAT and Administrative Tribunals at the Central and State level, is the case disposal and pendency data relating to the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT). This news report stated that the pendency at AFT was about 6,900 cases.
What is the AFT?
The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) was established by an Act of Parliament, namely, The Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007 to provide for:
a) the adjudication or trial of disputes and complaints with respect to the appointment and service matters of individuals serving in the Army, Navy and the Air Force; and
b) the adjudication of appeals arising out of orders, findings or sentences of court martial held in respect of the personnel of the aforementioned three defence forces.
The AFT was established with the Principal Bench being located in Delhi. Today regional benches are also working in ten locations across India, namely, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Guwahati, Kochi, Jabalpur and Jammu. The Principal Bench and the Regional Benches of Chandigarh and Lucknow have three judicial and three administrative members each. Other regional benches have one judicial member and one administrative member each. The Chairperson is always a judicial member.
The RTI Intervention
I had already submitted an RTI application to the AFT's Principal Bench In August 2025, seeking the following information:
"1) The year-wise number of cases admitted for hearing by every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal till date;
2) The year-wise number of cases disposed of by every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal till date;
3) The number of cases which are pending before every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal as on date;
4) The number of cases which are pending before every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal for more than 15 years;
5) The number of cases which are pending before every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal for between 10-15 years;
6) The number of cases which are pending before every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal for between 5-9 years;
7) The number of cases which are pending before every Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal for less than 5 years;
8) Please provide the list of cases transferred from the High Court of Delhi to the Armed Forces Tribunal between 2009-2010 along with the original Writ Petition number, Transfer Application number, the names of the Petitioner and Respondent and case number assigned to them by your Tribunal in relation to every case; and
9) The year-wise total expenditure incurred by the Armed Forces Tribunal between the Financial Years 2009-10 to 2019-20 (Bench-wise data is not required)."
The AFT's Reply
After about a month had passed, the AFT's CPIO replied supplying statistics about the admission, disposal and pendency of cases from 2009 up to September 2025, and expenditure figures from 2012-13 to 2022-23, free of charge. According to this data the total pendency across the 11 benches of the AFT was 27,962 cases (Principal Bench in Delhi and 10 Regional Benches based in Jammu, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Kolkata, Jabalpur, Mumbai, Kochi and Chennai). The Government's data (6,904 cases) tabled in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in December 2025 was a quarter of this figure. The core findings of my analysis of this data was reported by The Wire just before the year ended.
However the CPIO refused access to the RTI queries #4-8 explaining that the AFT did not maintain the information in the form in which I had sought it and that he is obliged to share only such records which fall within the definition of "information" under the RTI Act rather than give 'interpretation, explanation or opinions.' Subsequently, I filed a first appeal against this latter portion of the CPIO's reply.
First Appeal Grounds
I filed an appeal in October, 2025 against the CPIO's refusal to disclose the pendency duration data which I had described at queries #4-8 of the RTI application. I placed the following grounds before AFT's First Appellate Authority canvassing disclosure:
a) that Section 2(f) of the RTI Act provides the definition of the term ‘information’ which includes much more than the category ‘records’. There will be other types of ‘information’ in the custody of a public authority which are outlined in the said definition. Section 2(f) must be read not in isolation but in conjunction with the definition of the phrase “right to information” provided in Section 2(j) of the RTI Act. Section 2(j) clearly states that “right to information” means the right to information accessible under this Act which is held by or under the custody of any public authority…”. So, the right of a citizen is not merely limited to access copies of “records” materially held by or under the control of a public authority but also to access all "other types of information” which is materially held or under the custody of a public authority. So, ‘information’ such as whether a case pending before the Armed Forces Tribunal is five years old or ten years old or even older than that, or whether a case was transferred to the Tribunal from the High Court of Delhi is certainly in the nature of “information” which is “held by” the AFT. This information is held in pursuance of the statutory obligations under the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007. There is no requirement to create it for the purpose of compliance with any other law as it already exists in the form of ‘information’ with the AFT;
b) that the information which the CPIO has refused to disclose is of an objective and statistical nature which already exists in material form in the custody of the AFT. Nowhere have I sought any “interpretation, explanation or opinions” of the CPIO as I am not interested in probing his mind. The information sought is of an objective and statistical nature which already exists in material form in the AFT's custody. Further according to Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, information must be provided to an applicant in the form in which it has been sought. However, if the CPIO is unable to provide information in the form in which it has been sought, he is under a positive obligation to provide the same in some other form that is mutually acceptable, instead of refusing disclosure. So I requested AFT's Appellate Authority to direct the CPIO to mention the year of institution of each of the 27,962 pending cases;
c) that as far as the cases transferred from the High Court of Delhi are concerned, the information sought at query #8 of the RTI application would be available on the first page of every relevant case file. So providing copies of that information would not be difficult for AFT's CPIO;
d) that the AFT cannot ignore its statutory obligation of improving its records management practices under Section 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act by saying that the AFT Act's provisions are more important. The AFT has a duty to manage its records in a manner that they can be made accessible under the RTI Act; and
e) that the CPIO had not provided budgetary information of the AFT for all the years specified in the RTI Application.
Impact of the Appeal
I am still waiting for an order from the Appellate Authority, but soon after this appeal was filed, the CPIO transferred the RTI application to all the regional benches asking them to reply to queries #4-8. I did not get a copy of this transfer letter either, but one by one, all AFT Benches supplied data about the duration for which cases were pending before them. The CPIO of the Principal Bench in Delhi who initially refused disclosure, also calculated the pendency duration data in the form in which I had sought and sent it along with the complete list of cases that were transferred from the High Court of Delhi to the AFT. Of course, this CPIO charged INR 310 towards photocopying and postal charges. I paid it promptly and received the information by post. Other AFT benches did not charge any fee for providing the pendency duration data. However, I had to file another appeal against the silence of the regional benches in Mumbai and Chandigarh despite the transfer. They also fell in line within a couple of days of receiving these appeals and sent the data free of charge. So, I withdrew those appeals after the information was supplied.
Findings from the analysis of the dataset regarding pendency duration
1. When the number of cases pending for more than 15 years, between 10-15 years, 5-9 years and less than 5 years are added up for all 11 Benches of the AFT, the total pendency becomes 37,864 cases .In his initial reply sent in September, 2025, the CPIO of the AFT's Principal Bench in Delhi stated that only 27,962 cases were pending before the 11 Benches. The Ministry of Law and Justice put this figure at 6,904 cases in its reply to both Houses of Parliament in December 2025. The RTI replies sent by the individual benches of the AFT show that the actual pendency is more than five times the figure tabled twice in Parliament last year.
How can there be such a huge mismatch between the figures tabled in Parliament and those supplied through RTI? Also, why is there a huge discrepancy within the two datasets which AFT supplied at different points of time? Both the Government and the AFT have a duty to explain this data discrepancy;
2. Out of the 37,864 cases which are shown as pending before all 11 Benches of the AFT, 1,099 cases (2.90%) are pending for more than 15 years i.e., ever since the AFT Act became enforceable. Interestingly, in the first dataset disclosed by the CPIO of AFT's Principal Bench in September 2025, the total no. of cases admitted in 2009 by the three Benches which had been established by the Act was 2,180 cases. In other words, more than a half of the cases (50.41%) admitted by the three AFT Benches have remained pending since then. 1,000 of these cases are pending before the Principal Bench in Delhi, 52 cases in Chandigarh, 28 in Jaipur, 11 in Kolkata and 8 are pending before the Jabalpur Bench;
3. Almost a quarter of the 37,864 cases, i.e., 9,302 cases (24.57%) are pending for between 10-15 years. 7,908 of these cases are pending before the Principal Bench in Delhi followed by Kolkata Bench where 1,048 cases are pending. 183 cases before the Jaipur Bench, 133 before the Chandigarh Bench, 17 in Lucknow and 13 in Jabalpur are pending for between 10-15 years;
4. Of the 37,864 cases, 4,944 (13.06%) are pending for between five to nine years. Every AFT Bench has cases belonging to this category. Interestingly, Chandigarh has the highest number in this backlog at 1,278 cases followed by Delhi with 1,154 cases. Kolkata has 956 cases and Jaipur 779 in this category. Mumbai has 295 cases, Jammu 220, Jabalpur 124, Lucknow 94, Kochi 23, Guwahati 12 cases and Chennai 9 cases which are pending between five to nine years;
5. The remaining 22,519 cases (59.47%) are pending for less than five years before the 11 Benches of the AFT. Delhi accounts for more than a third of cases (8,695) in this category followed by Chandigarh with 4,836 and Lucknow with 4,206 cases. Together these three Benches account for three fourths (78.76%) of the pendency in this category. Jaipur has 1,497 cases, Jammu 1,008, Kolkata 578, Mumbai 424, Jabalpur 411, Kochi 403, Chennai 345 and Guwahati 116 cases which are pending for less than five years; and
6. According to the latest data furnished by the CPIO, AFT Principal Bench in Delhi, 1,204 cases were transferred from the High Court of Delhi to it soon after it was set up. How many of these cases have been disposed of, is not known. According to this CPIO 1,000 cases are pending before this Bench for more than 15 years. However, according to the data supplied by this CPIO initially in September 2025, only 992 cases had been admitted in 2009. Both the AFT and the Union Government must explain this data discrepancy also.
Conclusion
If the AFT is not able to dispense speedy justice to soldiers who defend our country, should we not be concerned as taxpayers? If the statistical data that government tables in Parliament is questionable, should we not be concerned as citizens because our MPs do not have the time or the resources to cross verify such data? This data discrepancy strikes at the very heart of the NDA Government's promise of transparent and accountable governance.
Then again, what are the causes for the long pendency of cases at the AFT? In March 2021, Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore (retd.) a BJP MP from Rajasthan sought to know vacancy details of the AFT. In response to his Unstarred Question (No. 2663), the Minister of State in the Union Defence Ministry tabled data which showed a vacancy in 23 of the 34 posts created across the 11 Benches as of February 2021. In December 2025, the Rajya Sabha was told that there were 11 vacancies across various Benches of the AFT. So about a fourth of the posts had remained vacant in 2025. An urgent measure that is required to clear the backlog of cases is to fill up these vacancies without further delay. Will the Government and the AFT work swiftly to remove these obstacles in the way of our soldiers getting justice, remains to be seen.
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Note: All facts are being placed in the public domain or have already lain there since December 2025. The above analytical findings are true to the extent of the correctness of the data tabled in Parliament and that which was furnished under the RTI Act. Click HERE for references
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*Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi. Views are personal
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