Mr President,
I am writing this letter
to you to share a shock! I have gone through your address at the 13th
Annual Convention of the Central Information Commission. You have made three
points: one, there is no such thing as too much information; two, there is a
need to look at declassification protocols for government and archival
documents and three, the CIC is doing a good job in upholding the basic charter
of RTI. I must inform you that you are right on the first score, partly right
on the second and totally wrong on the third. I hold the information
commissioners responsible for subverting the law lock, stock and barrel.
It is true that today,
thanks to technology (and not to any grace from anybody in government in the country)
there is a flood of information available to those who need it, at the mere
click of a mouse. Unfortunately, this does not apply to information about what
our public servants are doing though the Right to Information Act was passed
with much fan fare, 13 years ago, with the avowed objective of ensuring transparency of information which are vital
to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Governments and
their instrumentalities accountable to the governed. The seeds of self
destruction of the sunshine act are contained in the Act itself. Precisely, in
sections 13(5), 16(5) and 28 read with 2(e).
The RTI Act is a simple
law which is clear and unambiguous. The procedure for its implementation is
even simpler. And that makes the job of an information commissioner much, much simpler
than that of a munsif in our courts, considering the variety and range of
subjects and the battle of wits of the parties/advocates involved in the
courts. Thus the status, pay and perks provided to information commissioners,
including the Chief IC, is disproportional to the job description. It has not
only burdened the exchequer with avoidable expenses, but also enabled
bureaucrats, retiring from government service, to corner these jobs when, logically,
they should have been strictly barred on grounds of their vested interests. In
fact sections 13(5), 16(5) tend to make one believe that they were
intentionally provided to subvert the law itself. In any case the law has been
subverted to such an extent that it is as good as murdered by the information
commissioners.
The definition of
competent authorities and the powers granted to them to make rules to implement
the law has also proved to be a bane. Shockingly it is the chief justices of
the courts who have used these powers to introduce exorbitant fees (Rs 500/-
against Rs 10/- of Central and state governments, along with the application)
and even a fee with the first appeal which is not there in the case of other
public authorities. Worse, these judges have even excluded the judicial side of
their functions from the purview of the RTI Act, to the extent that even copies
of orders issued by them (in open courts!) are denied.
That the President of
India or the Governors in the states have not used the powers given to them
under Sec 14(3)(d) and 17(3)(d) respectively to weed out information
commissioners who are found unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity
of mind, as evidenced by their decisions, is also a matter of serious concern
for the citizens demanding transparency and accountability in the functions of
public servants. I had personally invoked these sections to demand removing
Wajahat Habibullah, the first Chief Information Commissioner of the Central
Information Commission and Palat Mohandas, the first Chief Information
Commissioner of Kerala State Information Commission but had not even got an
acknowledgement from the respective offices. The complaints are posted as blogs
at http://raviforjustice.blogspot.com/2012/01/rti-old-application-to-president-to.html and http://blogs.rediff.com/pmravindran/2007/11/27/sack-the-chief-information-commissioner/ respectively. Subsequent inquiries through RTI Act
had revealed that they had been forwarded to the concerned public authorities
for disposal at their end! Interestingly, there is one case of a state CIC
having been removed, in UP during the tenure of Ms Mayavati as the CM. And this
CIC had been a judge of a high court too. It had also been reported that within
about a year of his having been removed, he had committed suicide. In contrast,
there is the case of a former DIG of Police who had been appointed as an
information commissioner in Kerala. He was alleged to have tried to influence
an investigation in a land allotment case but was just kept suspended for the
rest of his tenure of almost 3 years, enjoying the pay and status without doing
a penny worth of job!
It is understood that a
proposal is on to review the pay and status of information commissioners. It
remains to be seen if the citizen empowered political decision maker can make
any meaningful change after overcoming the manipulations of the unaccountable
and self seeking babus. Also, the DoPT had put out a draft proposal for new RTI
Rules, seeking suggestions from the public. It was an unabashed effort to
blatantly subvert the law. Though there was no point issuing a point by point
argument against it the effort was made and these suggestions are available at https://www.slideshare.net/raviforjustice/rti-rules-2017draftdopt-circular1-52016ir31032017critique. However, for
simplicity sake, a totally new set of rules were suggested which is posted as a
blog at https://www.slideshare.net/raviforjustice/rti-rules-2017redrafted-by-rti-activist.
As far as declassifying
documents are concerned this is what Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, one of the most
illustrious Presidents we have had till date, had said: It is my experience that computerization of a large organization or
mission is successful only if the process themselves are re-engineered for
realizing the full benefits of automation. I must add that the processors also should be people of
competence and of unquestionable integrity.
To conclude, here is a challenge you may take on: just
check your website for compliance with Sec 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act and get at
least one order from each information commission which is correct in decision
and the procedure followed. In this context you may like to go through the blog
at https://www.slideshare.net/raviforjustice/rtiexposingthetraitorsamoungpublicservantspt2glitches.
14 Oct 2018
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