Dear Pradhan Mantriji,
I understand that the
outgoing Chief Information Commissioner, A K Mathur, has being appointed as the
first Lt Governor of Ladhak.
I see it as an act
rewarding treason, nothing less.
He, along with other
information commissioners, has subverted the Right to Information Act which had
sought to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every
public authority. The preamble to the Act has rightly highlighted that democracy requires an informed citizenry and
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.
There are two forms of
corruption- one visible, where bribes are openly demanded and taken and the
other is not so visible- nepotism or favoritism in some form of other.
The Bar Council rules have
sought to contain the latter by forbidding relations of judges appearing in
their courts as advocates. It is a different thing that even this has been
violated with impunity.
In an order dated 26 Nov
2010, a bench of the apex court had made the following observation:
“We do not mean to say that all lawyers
who have close relations as Judges of the High Court are misusing that
relationship. Some are scrupulously
taking care that no one should lift a finger on this account. However, others
are shamelessly taking advantage of this relationship”. Defending this
observation the bench of judges Markandeya Katju and Gyan SudhaMisra made
another great observation: the reputation of an institution is damaged
and its image sullied when some of its members pass shocking orders and behave
in a totally unacceptable manner.
But way back in 2004
itself, Binod Kumar Roy, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court,
had identified this problem and he had issued an administrative directive
wherein he had identified a dozen judges whose relatives were advocates and
forbade them from appearing before any of these 12 judges. This ensured that a
judge cannot help even a fellow judge's kin.
Within a month of this
directive, the SC Collegium recommended his transfer to the Patna High Court.
See ‘All in the Family’
and ‘Judge Dread’ at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/all-in-the-family/225626 and http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Judge-Dread/225624 both published on 08 Nov 2004.
Given the extent of
networking within the society, especially among organized employees, retired
bureaucrats should have been seen to be most unsuitable for the post of
information commissioners. But it seems that the RTI Act was actually intended
to only pull the wool over the eyes of the public. (Not surprising, since even
the Constitution seems to have been drafted with no different aim by Nehru and
his courtiers!) The status of CEC, EC
and Chief Secretaries given to these commissioners has ensured that they
remained lucrative sine cures for those retiring from regular employment. Without going into details here I shall invite
your attention to a series of 5 articles on ‘RTI: Exposing the traitors among
public servants’ at
There was a report a few
months ago about an amendment to the RTI Act that would change the status and
duration of employment of information commissioners. Nothing has been heard of
its implementation till date.
There is no denying the
fact that a lot of good work has been done under your guard. But the sad fact
is that nothing appears to have been done towards making the government responsive
to public needs of governance. Lack of transparency and accountability and
corruption and favoritism continue to rule the roost. While examples can be
given aplenty, this appointment of AK Mathur, would suffice for now.
Yours truly,
P M Ravindran
29 Oct 2019
Save RTI
Campaign-Mission Statement:
Save Right to Information.
Use Right to Information Act.
Get information or......Expose
at least three idiots/traitors* among public servants!
1. THE PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER
2. THE FIRST APPELLATE AUTHORITY
(AND THE HEAD OF PUBLIC AUTHORITY WHERE THE HEAD OF THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY IS NOT
THE FAA!) AND
3. THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
* An idiot is one who does
not know the job s/he is getting paid to do and a traitor is one who knows it
but does not do it. Provided that even an idiot can be branded a traitor based
on the consequences of his/her action
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