RTIGATE-A 15 YEAR OLD SCAM

 

RTIGATE-A 15 YEAR OLD SCAM

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

 

It is 15 years since the Right to Information Act was introduced as another piece of legislation, only to cheat the masses once again. Touted as a sunshine act, as a panacea for corruption and introduce accountability of the public servants to the public, it has grown into one of the biggest, yet unrecognized, scams over the last 15 years.

 

Before we proceed further, let us do some back of envelope calculations.

 

Each information commission is authorized one Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and a maximum of 10 Information Commissioners (ICs). There is the Central Information Commission (Central IC) and 29 state information commissions (SICs) with say, an average of 6 ICs, including the CIC. That makes the total number of ICs, including the CICs, as 180.

 

Each information commissioner can dispose of, say, a very conservative 10 appeals per working day and there are 220 working days per year, then each IC is expected to clear 2200 appeals in a year. So, between all the ICs, in 15 years the number of appeals disposed of should be around 59,40,000.

 

The RTI Act provides for imposing a penalty @ Rs 250/- per day of delay in providing the information sought, subject to a maximum of Rs 25000/- on a defaulting Public Information Officer (PIO). Presuming that no appeal would have been filed unless there had been shortfalls in providing the complete information sought and that by the time an appeal is disposed of by an IC this maximum limit would have been reached the total penalty due would be a whopping Rs 148,500,000,000 (14,850 Cr).

 

Now consider the average cost, just in terms of his/her pay and perks only, to exchequer of an IC to be around Rs 3 lakhs per month till 7^th Central Pay Commission and 5 lakhs per month since 01 Jan 2016. That would be Rs 11,880,000,000 (1,188 Cr).

 

To my mind the total of the above figures, that is Rs 16,038 Crores is the total loss to the exchequer over the last 15 years. This does not include the cost of the establishment, that is the fixed and movable assets, the salary and allowances of the other employees, consumables etc.

 

Do I mean that all the 2^nd appeals were deserving the full penalty to be imposed? Yes, of course. Given that even in cases of decisions directing the defaulting Public Information Officers to provide information, the ICs have been delinquent in penalizing them shows the extent of arbitrariness, waywardness and corruption involved.

 

I, along with 12 activists, were put in the dock when we staged a protest outside the venue where the then CIC of Kerala SIC was to address a seminar on RTI. Obviously, the detention and prosecution were illegal and misuse of the authority by the police at the behest of the CIC. That aside, demands of the protesters were for the information commissions to stop:

 

-  denial of democratic rights of citizens

-  violation of laws

-  corruption

-  extravaganza

 

 

The issues highlighted included:

 

All public authorities including the Information Commission should disclose information as required by Sec 4(1)(b)

 

Collect the penalty prescribed by law for the delay in publishing the information

 

Dispose of the complaints and appeals received by the Commission in a time bound manner as prescribed by the law

 

Stop the misinformation being disseminated by the Commission

 

The Commission which has an air conditioned office, computers, luxury cars and more than the required number of employees should not claim that it has no facilities (the 4 commissioners who need 15 employees have 35, of the 1263 cases filed in the Commission between January 2006 and May 2007 only 649 have been disposed of, and the amount spent by the Commission during this period was Rs 2.5 crores of the tax payers’ money)

 

Stop spreading lies like some people are threatening the government employees in the name of the RTI Act

 

Isn’t the scope for misusing the law available only for the information commissioners? For example, to accept a bribe of Rs 15000/- from a defaulting public servant who should be penalized with Rs 25000/- and fail to penalize him is available only to the information commissioners.

 

The copy of the leaflet, in Malayalam, distributed during the protest on 18 Dec 2007, along with its translation in English, is available at 

https://www.slideshare.net/raviforjustice/rti-protest181207leafletmal-n-eng.

 

Horror of horrors, the situation has only gone from bad to worse over the years.

 

To elucidate further, even the information commissions have not complied with the mandated suo moto disclosures listed in Sec 4(1)(b).

 

At their website, http://keralasic.gov.in/, under Right to Information, Kerala SIC has only provided the details of their PIO and their First Appellate Authority (FAA).

 

Under Disclosures, there is a Menu where the 1^st option is Disclosure u/s 4(1)(b). Here what has been provided is a list under the heading Private Journey Payment (for the period 2011 June to 2014 July).

 

The Central IC, which had correctly disclosed this information, sub section wise, at their website in the early years, has now disclosed only partial information. For example, the details of employees and their monthly remuneration have not been disclosed as required by Sec 4(1)(b)(ix) and Sec 4(1)(b)(x) of the RTI Act. What has been left out is the exact number of employees in each category. And instead of the exact remuneration being given, only the levels as per the 7^th Central Pay Commission scales have been provided.  

 

While the Act has provided mandatory time frames for the PIOs and FAAs to reply and for the applicant to file appeals, it has not provided any time frame for the ICs to dispose of the appeals (as well as complaints) submitted to them. But there is a provision, and only one provision to Sec 7(1), which prescribes a priority for providing information. It says: where the information sought for concerns the life or liberty of a person, the same shall be provided within forty-eight hours of the receipt of the request. By extension, it follows that the appeals, including the 2^nd appeal, must be disposed of within 48 hours each. And, in the rest it must be on first come, first served basis. But even that is violated, as will be evident when I present data on disposal of cases.

Regarding disposal of cases, under the option ‘Orders’ in the main menu, the Kerala SIC has provided the information at its website under different years from 2010 to 2019 and another option ‘Orders in English’.

 

As on 30 Jul 2019, for 2019, the orders have been provided against various ICs as follows:

 

Vinson M Paul, CIC (For January to April 2019):

 

He had disposed of 312 cases between January and March 2019. And 32 in April 2019. To understand the arbitrary and wayward (not on first come first served basis) manner of disposal, the April data was analyzed, to co-relate the year, in which the application was originally submitted, with the appeals and complaints disposed of in that month. The result is:  

 

2^nd appeal       : 2012-3, 2013-9, 2018-10, 2019-1,    Total- 23

Complaints      : 2013-2, 2014-1, 2018-1, 2019-5,      Total- 09

 

The following are deficiencies noted in the above data made available:

 

-          Information about the disposals since May 2019 is not available.

-          The orders/decisions, themselves are not accessible in all cases. While the orders up to March 2019 appears as hyperlinks, for April 2019 it is just a list. But even in some random cases of these hyperlinks I have checked from the January list, some have returned the message ‘Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /images/stories/sic/decisions/orders2019/cic/ on this server.’

-          The orders have been uploaded in Word format and not Portable Document Format (PDF) and hence cannot be read unless the same fonts are installed in your system. This problem does not arise with PDF.

 

If this be the case of the CIC, the data about other ICs is even more shocking.

 

Vivekanandan, IC (Available for 2018 only.)

 

2^nd appeal       : 2016-6, 2017-5, 2018-2,                   Total- 13

Complaints      : 2013-6, 2014-2, 2017-3,                   Total- 11

 

Somanathan Pillai, IC (Available for 2019 only, not month wise but separately for Malayalam and English. The figures given below includes both)

 

2^nd appeal       : 2010-1, 11-1, 12-1, 13-4, 14-13, 16-1, 17-2, 18-14, 19-7,    Total- 44

Complaints      : 2010-6, 15-1, 17-3, 18-2, 19-3,                                             Total- 15

 

Sudhakaran, IC (Available for 2019 only.)

 

2^nd appeal       : 2015-8, 16-1, 17-3, 18-4,                  Total- 16

Complaints      : C: 2015-1, 18-1                                  Total- 02

 

Sreelatha, IC (For January and Feb 2019 only.)

 

2^nd appeal       : 2015-3, 17-5, 18-4,                           Total- 12

Complaints      : 2017-8, 18-3,                                     Total- 11

 

While Sudhakaran’s list of cases disposed have hyperlinks to the orders/decisions which are in PDF the list of cases disposed of by the others are just that, mere lists with no access to the decisions themselves.

 

It may be noted that while the figures about disposal do convey the casual approach of the ICs, the perusal of the orders themselves would reveal the preposterous nature of the decisions. When the decisions are devoid of reasons the least that should be obvious should be the dereliction of duty and/or incompetence of the CIC. If anybody suspects corruption, they cannot also be blamed.

 

Another piece of information available at the website is that of the expenditure incurred by the Commission annually, for the period from 2005-06 to 2013-14. It has steadily increased from Rs 1.0127 Cr to 2.9474 Cr. No need to ask: what about the expenditures thereafter?

 

As per a list, updated on 11/10/2018, of 664 penalties imposed by the Commission, the first penalty, of Rs 3500/- was imposed by the Commission on 08/01/2007. The last, Rs 1000/- was imposed on 18/07/2018.

 

The total penalty imposed, as per the summary provided is: Rs 44,51,815/-; the total received is only Rs 28,56,353/- and the High Court, Kerala has stayed penalties totaling Rs 4,88,387/-. Again, no questions on the missing Rs 11,06,893/-.

 

Now, when penalized PIOs take up the matter with high courts they are required to do so in their own personal capacity. This is not only logically correct but has been held so by Punjab and Haryana High Court as per a report in the Indian Express, datelined 04 Nov 2010.

 

Since, the Information Commission must be a respondent in such cases, do the commissions keep a record of such cases? At least the Kerala SIC does not.

 

This is in violation of Sec 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act which mandates that ‘Every public authority shall maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act.

 

In a similar issue, of maintaining a register to track compliance of their decisions, the Central IC had decided that a Register of Non Compliance will be opened, which will be processed by the Office of Secretary, CIC and on conclusion of the complaint, the complaint will either be closed or registered as a complaint for hearing under the appropriate sub sec. of Sec. 18(1) and proceeded upon by the Bench of the Information Commissioner concerned. (Refer decision dated 11/06/2009 in Commission in their case file no. CIC/WB/C/2008/00859.)

 

In a 5-part series on the subject ‘RTI: Exposing the traitors among public servants’ published here between 27 and 31 Mar 2018 the details of the RTI Act including its shortcomings, the lapses in implementation and the way forward had been analyzed.

 

Please read them at

http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4626

 

http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4627

 

http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4628

 

http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4629

 

http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4630

 

There is one small but major change that has happened since then.

 

Through an amendment to the Act, published in the Gazette on 01 August 2019 and the rules published thereunder on 24 Oct 2019, the tenure and pay of the ICs, including the CICs have been changed.

 

Essentially, the tenure of all these public servants have been reduced to 3 years from 5 years.

 

The pay of the CIC of the Central IC has been reduced to Rs 2,50,000. Earlier it had been the same as that of the Chief Election Commissioner.

 

The pay of the ICs of the Central IC has been reduced to Rs 2,25,000. Earlier it had been the same as that of the Election Commissioner.

 

The pay of the CICs and ICs of the SICs have been fixed at Rs 2,25,000/-. Earlier it had been the same as that of an Election Commissioner and Chief Secretary to the State Government, respectively.

 

I have been maintaining that the job of an IC is simpler than that of a munsif in our judiciary. Hence even this level of pay is an avoidable drain on the exchequer.

 

But there has been severe criticism of this amendment from many RTI activists themselves. For example, Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, has commented in the Economic Times of 25 Oct 2019 (Govt notifies RTI rules; CIC tenure cut to 3 yrs, govt to decide salary, other perks) that ‘As the parity between the Information Commissions and the Election Commission of India has been downgraded to babu-level, it is highly unlikely that in a situation where the rule of law is not a very strongly embedded value in the bureaucracy, that senior babus in the administration will ever be hauled up before the Information Commissions for not complying with the provisions of the RTI Act’. Of course, everyone has a right to his opinion. But he seems to have forgotten that even P V Narasimha Rao, as the Prime Minister of this nation then, had been doing the rounds of trial courts at least in three cases in which he had been an accused- the Lakhubhai Pathak case, the JMM bribery case and the St Kitts case. (The analysis of these cases is itself an interesting study, but for a later occasion.)

 

Another report in the Print dated 21 May 2020 ( 21 of 29 state information commissions did not hold any RTI hearings during lockdown) The study by voluntary groups Satark Nagrik Sangathan and Centre for Equity Studies stated that only the Central IC and the SICs of Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Manipur, Punjab and Telangana had made provisions for taking up urgent matters or those related to life and liberty during the period. But then wasn’t the apex court itself among the first to decide that it was a non-essential service during the lockdown?

 

05 Aug 2020.

TO WRITE OR NOT TO WRITE...

 

TO WRITE OR NOT TO WRITE...

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

 

Prudence dictates it is better to let sleeping dogs lie. But wisdom demands that the unpalatable and unpleasant, at least those in public domain, be discussed publicly and thrashed out in public interest.

 

On 04 Jul 2020, Hindustan Times carried a report under the heading ‘NSA Doval coordinated PM Modi’s surprise Nimu visit’. I was too shocked at the preposterousness of the suggestion implicit in the title and posted a comment thus:

 

I really don't understand what is there for NSA Doval to co-ordinate about the PM's visit to a military station. From the general reports appearing in the media involving Doval, it looks like there is more to it than meets the eye. Is there any effort to paint a larger than life size picture of Doval? Or, is it to reduce the PM to a puppet in the hands of Doval? Even worse, is it just to paint the armed forces as puppets of the same public servant? Otherwise, all that Doval had to do in this case was just inform the CDS that the PM would be visiting Leh on such and such date at such and such time. And the Services would have taken it on from there and done the job much, much better than Doval can even dream of.

 

Earlier in the film ‘Uri, the Surgical Strike’ too Doval is shown to be the brain behind the successful military operation.

 

And now, the usually unreliable Malayalam visual and print media is also seen going gaga over Doval, the Indian James Bond, leading the investigations in the gold-smuggling-through- diplomatic bag case. With the investigations leading to terror funding, and may be their mouth pieces too, one can imagine the motivation for such blurbs.

 

I have nothing to do with Doval, and even if there is, it just doesn’t matter a fig. But where was this Doval before he became the National Security Advisor under Prime Minister Modi? He had been a member of the Indian Police Service and retired with no obvious fanfare. Had he left any lasting impression in the performance of the police as a service organization? Like Kiran Bedi did, with her reforms in Tihar Jail?  

 

Doval draws comparison T N Seshan, a member of the Indian Administrative Service who went on to become the Cabinet Secretary without much ado. But once he got appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner, he did try to cleanse the election system. Notable among those efforts was the introduction of Identity Cards for voters. Unfortunately, the then Chief Minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, of Bihar had openly said that he would not implement it in the State under his charge. But what has happened there after? Even today this identity card is not the only identification document required to cast vote. And, in the last elections in Kerala, to the Legislative Assembly, there were complaints of impersonation. But that is not all.

 

Driven by apex court orders, the candidates are also submitting information about their criminal records while filing their application. But does that information reach the electorate in time? An NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms have been trying to compile this information of candidates, at least of important constituencies, and publishing them for the information of the voters. But even while the effort is tremendous, for a small NGO, they are less than the proverbial drop in the ocean for what needs to be done and could be achieved.

 

I remember my own case of getting my Voter’s Identity Card just 10 days before the elections in 1999 and finding my name missing from the electoral roll when I landed up at the polling booth. Complaints to the concerned authorities had remained unanswered. Interestingly, some similarly placed citizens had approached the High Court; but the court had dismissed the petition with the observation that even if they had voted it would not have made any difference to the result. The court had obviously forgotten that it was not the result of the election that was being challenged but the denial of the fundamental right of citizens to choose, through ballots, their representatives in law making bodies.

 

There are laid down procedures to remove names from an electoral roll. And the public servants who had violated it had also not been made accountable for their sins of omissions and commissions.

 

Much later, I had also read a report of a court observing that those who had not voted had no right to complain against the government.

 

Now, here is the situation after the implementation of the Right to Information Act.

 

Post the 2014 General Election, I had sought some information related to the activities of the Anti-Defacement Squads constituted by the District Election Officer (DEO), their constitution, deployment, tasks, cost etc. Among the information obtained was the cost of defacement required to be recovered from the candidates/political parties. This was as under:

 

UDF: Rs 1,10,100/-; LDF: 1,18,000/-; BJP: 42,100/-; Welfare Party: 1650/-; SDPI: 2670/-; BSP: 1142/-; AAP: 1050/-; Virendra Kumar: 2100/-. Total: Rs 2,78,812/-

 

Post the 2019 General Election too I had sought similar information plus the following information in the context of the earlier dues:

 

(a)    The date(s) when the payment(s) were made and copies of the proofs of payment.

 

(b)   Of the cases filed, the number of cases disposed of and the punishments awarded.

 

Suffice to say that no information was provided and the 2^nd appeal is pending with the Kerala State Information Commission (KSIC) since 26 Sep 2019.

 

Thanks to this fraud perpetrated in perpetuity, this issue of defacing public spaces continues unabated. When even in Motor Vehicle Act provision has been made for repetition of offences to be taken more seriously, is there any reason why such measures should not be introduced to make the dance of democracy more orderly for the society?

 

If defacing public spaces is explicitly banned it is presumed that private spaces will not be misused by candidates/political parties during elections. In the matter of private spaces, it is explicitly mandated that the permission of the owner must be taken. But in practice any property which appears not occupied is used with impunity.

 

Thus, it was that during the last General Election (in 2019) I found the walls of my adjacent plot plastered with the posters of a candidate. I immediately complained to all authorities from the CEC (complaints@eci.gov.in) down to the DEO(dcpkd@kerala.nic.in and contactus@ceo.kerala.gov.in, the State Chief Electoral Officer, in between).

 

The ECI merely acknowledged receipt of the complaint and informed that it had been forwarded to ‘concerned’ authorities. A query regarding the identity of this authority/authorities returned the same useless acknowledgement.

 

An application under the RTI Act, seeking copy of the file noting on action taken on the complaint by the DEO, did not elicit any response from the Public information Officer and the 1^st Appellate Authority. The 2^nd appeal is pending with the KSIC since 26 Sep 2019.

 

As per Sec 28A of the Representation of People Act 1951, those who are drafted for election work are deemed to be on deputation to the Election Commission of India, hence their control, discipline and superintendence will be vested with the Election Commission of India. This is quoted in all the proceedings of the District Election Officer and District Collector whenever the election machinery is set in motion.

 

But what happens if an Observer on election duty in one district of Kerala goes off to play golf in another district and he is recalled by the Election Commission of India? When information is sought on disciplinary action taken against the Observer, the Public Information Officer simply informs you that it is not available with the Commission. And the First Appellate Authority of the Commission, a Principal Secretary, has the cheeks to state that the information had itself been sought based on a newspaper report and recalling the Observer need not even be construed as a case of disciplinary or administrative action.

 

Readers may like to recollect or re-read the article ‘Survival by blackmail or art of governance’ at http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4595.

 

Former President of India, K R Narayanan writing in the Illustrated Weekly of India (‘Fragile Chimera’, 6-12 Sep 1987) had stated that few men are so disinterested as to prefer to live in discomfort under a government which they hold to be right rather than in comfort under one they hold to be wrong. In politics and administration, it is not enough to be right. It is imperative that the goods are delivered to the people, there is law and order and a general sense of comfort and above all a common sense of unity in the country and the society.

 

And Alvin Toffler, had observed in Future Shock that ‘psychologists studying the impact of change on various organisms have shown that adaptation can occur only when the level of stimulation- the amount of change and novelty in the environment- is neither too low nor too high’.

 

To conclude, it was Bernard Shaw who had said that ‘the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man’. 

 

I hope the message, or as it is often called, ‘the writing on the wall’, is clear.

 

24 Jul 2020.

 

TRUTH BE TOLD

 

TRUTH BE TOLD

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

 

Shortly after independence a one-man commission had been constituted to report on the extent of corruption in government offices then. After submitting his report, when journalists sought his views on the subject, he summed it up in one sentence: I have started believing in God. He elaborated that there was so much corruption, but people still seemed so happy that there had to be somebody like God to make it happen.

 

Things haven’t changed much in the last 70 plus years, except perhaps that after Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, not any of his ministers seems to have got embroiled in any scams. And that is certainly a great thing to happen given the abysmal depths to which governance had been reduced to in the preceding years, since Independence.

 

Incidentally, one of the first ever scams reported in the country was the Jeep Scandal, in 1948. In the multiple deals involved, two facts stand out- one, there had been a scam in the purchase of those jeeps for the armed forces and, two, not only nobody involved had been punished for it, but V K Krishna Menon rose to be Nehru’s confidante and the nation’s Defense Minister.

 

The Rafael deal with France was sought to be raked up by those who had lost power due to the scams that they had tried to dismiss as a compulsion of coalition dharma. But thanks to their own failed effort to use the judiciary to taint the incumbents, it ended up as a whimper.

 

But defense preparedness had always been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. It seems to have got some worthwhile attention only after the Chinese debacle of 1962 and till the Bangladesh victory of 1971; but continued to languish as usual, thereafter. It went from bad to worse after the Mother of all Scams, Bofors, hit the headlines in the 1980s. 

 

There is a truism that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat its mistakes.

 

So, as in 1962, we were again caught with our pants down by the same Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army. But the damage control exercise has paid off for the time being; at least after 20 valiant soldiers paid for with their lives at Galwan.

 

The anti-China flavor of the season, due to Covid, working in India’s favor at the international level, also factored in.

 

A CAG Report had indicted the government on the lack of even snow goggles, snow boots and high-altitude ration for troops in Siachin.

 

Now, there is reportedly a rush to buy many essential items for the armed forces, starting with winter clothing and personal weapons.

 

The Prime Minister made an impromptu visit to the border areas to take personal stock of the ground realities. While he had done everything to pep up the morale of the troops, a third page, two-column centimeter media report also informed us that he had given a piece of his mind to the former Chief of Army Staff, who is currently the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), for blinking.

 

At this point of time, at least as an aside, one is tempted to ask: when it is the Defense Secretary who is legally responsible for the defense of the country, what it the responsibility of the CDS in his role as the ‘one-point reference’ on military matters.

 

Also need to be asked are the following questions: what the expert opinion sought had been, when had it been sought, who had sought it and what was the opinion given, in the current imbroglio.  

 

This issue of the Defense Secretary being responsible for the defense of the nation has to do with the system followed by our colonial masters. Both in the UK and the US of A, the Secretaries of Defense are the equivalent of our Defense Minister and not mere bureaucrats. For the record, most of these office bearers are veteran soldiers themselves.

 

So, while we borrowed the term from their constitutional lexicon we merely superimposed an elected representative as a Minister, with clearly no responsibilities except to read out answers prepared by bureaucrats, on some questions related to defense raised in the Parliament.

 

This is also a sore point in Civil-Military relations in our country. When, in the aftermath of the 1962 debacle, the then Defense Minister had to resign, and many military heads rolled, nothing has been known on what happened to the then Defense Secretary.

 

Surely a case of ‘heads, I win, tails, you lose’ in favor of the bureaucrats.

 

Is this corruption? To my mind, it is. Anything done without rationale, logic or public (read national) interest in mind is corruption, if not treason itself.

 

From the Jeep scam of 1948 to the smuggling of gold in diplomatic bags is in keeping with the dictum that criminals are always a few steps ahead of those enforcing law.

 

But has anyone thought of the reasons why the operators had to resort to these extreme steps? Demonetization, rigorous actions as per Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act, cancellation of registration of dubious NGOs, confiscation of property of absconding criminals, push for digital transactions etc have indeed played their roles in driving these mafia groups to desperation.

 

Has the alleged involvement of the office of the Chief Minister of Kerala come as any surprise to anybody? I, for one, am convinced that Pinarayi Vijayan as the Chief Minister has done nothing correct or good and worse, done everything wrong or bad.

 

The only thing that serious citizens of God’s own Country must be remembering of Pinarayi Vijayan’s earlier avatar as the State’s Electricity Minister is the Lavlin Scam. The essence of the scam is that a contract for repairing some generators had been renegotiated by hiking the cost and about 50 percent of the hiked cost was to be spend by Lavlin, a Canadian firm, for constructing a cancer hospital in the State. Well, for an onlooker it constitutes a scam right away. But the worse thing was the investment in the hospital did not even take place. And the question raised is ‘where did that money go?’

 

In the current scam, Principal Private Secretary to the Chief Minister, Sivasankaran, is, reportedly, an accused. He is also the IT Secretary to the Government of Kerala. To douse the fire that was rapidly engulfing him, Sivasankaran has been sent on compulsory leave for one year.

Just recollect how Dr Jacob Thomas, IPS, the senior most member of the IPS had been suspended for over 18 months on flimsy grounds like writing a book without permission or commenting that the relief works that were carried out after a natural calamity was inadequate and flawed. (Please see ‘Kollunna Raajaavinu Thinnunna Manthri’ at http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=5396)

 

Vijayan is clinging to his office by declaring ignorance of whatever has reportedly happened. But thanks to technology, a video clip of Pinarayi Vijayan is viral on social media. It shows him criticizing the then CM, Ommen Chandy, and demanding his resignation when Solar scam had hit the headlines, less than 10 years back.

 

It is pertinent to recollect what a bench of S. B. Sinha and Markandeya Katju of the apex court had commented once:  The only solution for this menace (corruption) is to hang some people in the public so that it acts as a deterrent on others."

 

The gold smuggling case is not merely of corruption but has security ramifications also for the country. Reports suggest that the gold or its proceeds were intended for a terrorist organization operating from Hyderabad.

 

And my personal favorite quip: I have not killed anybody, but a smile had crossed my lips on seeing many obituaries.

 

16 Jul 2020

WE (THE PEOPLE) VS THEM (THE PUBLIC SERVANTS)

A few days back I received two messages through WhatsApp from an activist friend of mine.  One of them was about the ordinary folks’ penchant for cheap stuff, even in the matter of food stuffs which may be injurious to their health. He was mentioning specifically about coconut oil. He has a coconut farm and he says that it costs Rs 250/- to market a kilogram of pure coconut oil. He laments that people would prefer to buy adulterated coconut oil at Rs 225/- per kg and ruin their health than go for the pure variety which was good for health.

I recollected my own intervention in the matter of 6 lakh kgs of pepper that had been ordered to be burnt by the Food Safety Commissioner (FSC) of Kerala because it had been colored with mineral oil and polished with paraffin wax, both known to be cancerogenous. Almost four years later it was reported that the pepper was to be cleaned under the supervision of the Food Safety Commissioner.

On pursuing under the Right to Information Act, the following facts were revealed. One, the order for cleaning the adulterated pepper had been given by a single judge bench of the Kerala High Court. Two, the FSC had identified a caffeine processing plant in Palakkad as the only facility for this cleaning. Three, the cleaning was done by washing with detergent followed by rinsing with clean water.

The information not provided include, the copies of test results that made the FSC order the burning of 6 lakh kgs of pepper in the first place and the test results after the cleaning.

The last that was heard about the cleaned pepper was that it was found unsuitable for export and hence would be sold in the local market itself.

This episode can be closed with two questions: one, does pepper that is unfit for consumption by foreigners become fit for consumption by locals? Two, can the spices be removed from pickled vegetables by washing with detergent and rinsing with clean water?

Coming to the second question, which should rightly be answered by the judge of the Kerala High Court who ordered the cleaning of the pepper, there is another case that comes to mind.

In the matter of the Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Ltd (Coca Cola Company, for short) which was accused of overdrawing the underground water at Plachimada, a single judge bench of Kerala High Court had ruled that the company could not overdraw ground water as it would lead to water scarcity in the neighborhood. A division bench of the same high court later ruled in favor of the company stating that the right of a company to draw water from its property even for commercial uses is the same as the right of an individual to draw water from his property for personal consumption.

Back to my activist friend and his second message.

Here he has openly warned other activists from interfering with illegal mining mafia saying that they should be prepared for being framed in false cases by the police working in nexus with such mafia as well as being assaulted by the goons of such mafia while the police looked the other way.

Here also I have my own experience to narrate.

It happened more than decade back. Somebody from the outskirts of my town informed of an illegal quarry working in his neighborhood causing damages to the houses there and pollution too. He had informed me that he had complained to the local Kasaba Police and to the Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO). After visiting the site with him I pursued a few applications under the RTI Act.

The RDO informed me that the matter had been reported to the Mining and Geology Office in the district. This office informed me that their officials had visited the site and, finding the quarrying illegal, had directed the police to take necessary action. The police informed me that they had never received any complaints.

As facts stood it was the responsibility of the Mining and Geology Department to prosecute the offenders. Even the RDO could have punished them within his powers.

However, even though no one was learnt to have been punished, the quarrying had been stopped eventually. I too had then got a veiled threat from the mafia which I could only dismiss with the contempt it deserved.

Activists, I must say, are among the best citizens in any democracy. Not just because I consider myself to be one. Knowledgeable people have said that alert citizens are essential for the success of any democracy. Also, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. So, it comes as no surprise that activists are persona non grata for our so-called public servants who have continued to live in the inherited dream world of our colonial past. But the misfortune is that it is not only activists who are kababi ki haddi for our public servants. Just to prove this point here is the story of Krisna, a farm laborer, on social security pension, who got bitten by a stray dog and his fight for being compensated.

Krisna was sitting in front of his hut when a stray dog rushed in and gave a bite. He was rushed to the District Hospital where they did not have the anti-rabies serum for injection. He went to the medical college where they got him to buy the serum from a private pharmacy for about Rs 14,000/-.

On the advice of a friendly neighborhood activist (FNA) he sent a demand for reimbursement of the cost of medicine to the office of State’s Health Minister. Soon he got an intimation that the claim had been forwarded to the District Medical Officer (DMO) for necessary action. He was glad that he would soon receive the reimbursement. But he was disappointed as there was no response from the DMO’s office.

Guided by the FNA, he applied under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to the DMO’s office to find out what action had been taken on the letter from the Health Minister’s office. To his horror he was informed that they had not received any such letter.

He submitted an appeal to the DMO’s office. They wrote back asking him to provide a copy of his application and the reply by their Public Information Officer. Since these documents were available in their office, Krisna submitted the next appeal to the State’s Information Commission. This was dismissed. Arbitrarily, no doubt.

Krisna then applied under the RTI Act to the minister’s office, seeking to know the details of the posting of the letter to the DMO’s office and also of any reply received from the latter. No response was received. A complaint to the Information Commission was also arbitrarily dismissed.

Persevering, with the support of the FNA of course, Krisna complained to the District Collector. It got routed to the DMO, District Hospital and finally to the Medical College, with nothing useful coming out of the effort.

It was around that time that the then Chief Minister, Ommen Chandy, decided to hold one of his Public Contact Programs in the district. The modus operandi was the citizens could submit their complaints or applications to the District Collector, who in turn would route them to the concerned public servants. On the day of the Contact Program all public authorities would set up their stalls and through these stalls the replies to the complaints would be distributed. Those who were not satisfied with the reply could meet the CM.

Krisna’s complaint was routed to the Tehsildar and he was told to contact their office the next working day. Not knowing what to do he decided to meet the CM. He did not get the opportunity. The next day’s media reports announced how the CM left the venue late at night after seeing the last citizen who had wanted to meet him.

Krisna went to the Tehsildar’s office 4-5 times spread over two weeks before he got fed up.

There is quote that goes ‘fortune favors the brave’. May be, it also favors also the persistent.

On a PIL, against the apathy of the government to control stray dog menace, the apex court appointed a one-man judicial committee to inquire into the menace and to suggest compensation to the victims.

Krisna approached the Committee through an NGO. Two years later, and 7 years after his initial application to the Health Minister, the Municipality paid him about Rs 47,000/- on the direction of the Committee.

Tailpiece: This is one of the rare judicial committees whose reports have been acted upon. This committee which was constituted as per order dated 05/04/2016 in IA 4/2015 in WP (C) 599/2015, was known to be functional even as on 20/04/2019. Since there are no media reports on the activities of the Committee it is not known whether it is continuing even now or not. But there are plenty of stray dog bite cases being reported in the media.

29/05/2020

P M Ravindran; raviforjustice@gmail.com

KOLLUNNA RAAJAAVINU THINNUNNA MANTHRI

The above quip, For the king who kills, The minister who eats, conveys the modus operandi of a team that commits a crime and leaves no trace of it. Such a crime manifested in Kerala during the Covid lockdown. Kerala is the only State where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is in power. There have been rave reviews, even at the international level, on the way this government has managed the pandemic problem in the State. These are mainly the work of “embedded” journalists far removed from ground realities. Of course, the whole country is fighting Covid. Under these circumstances, the Sprinklr (no ‘e’) controversy has played out in Kerala.

Sprinklr is a Keralite-owned, US based company that claims to be an expert in data analysis. They approached the Government of Kerala and offered to help with the analysis of data of those affected by Covid and whose details were included in the data base of the government. It was a free of cost offer and on that count beyond reproach. But cyberspace has it that the cost of such data of even an individual varies from Rs 15,000/- to Rs 1,50,000/- among pharma companies. And the data with the State Government ran into a couple of lakhs.

The controversy erupted when a journalist asked the Chief Minister, during his then regular 6 p.m. briefings on the Covid situation, why a foreign firm had been entrusted this job and how the personal information was transferred to a private firm. The Chief Minister initially defended it on the irrelevant ground that it was free and there was no loss to the government. But soon he lost his cool and called off the briefing. The briefings stood cancelled for the next few days.

The briefings were resumed only after Secretary of the Information Technology Dept., of which the Chief Minister is in-charge, admitted that he was responsible for the deal in all its aspects and that he had not even deemed it necessary to approach the Law Department for advice. Of course, he must have been reassured that the Chief Minister would not permit his prosecution.

The matter reached the High Court of Kerala which pulled up the Government for failure to follow procedures and directed them to recall the data already uploaded to Sprinklr’s website and give it back to them after hiding the personal identifiers. A great decision indeed, for the layman. For those better informed about technology, it is stupid.

Meanwhile, the Government constituted a committee of two former bureaucrats to probe the matter. Rajeev Sadanand, a member of the committee, was Health Secretary during the Oommen Chandy government in 2012. The UDF Government had then ordered a study, the Kerala Health Observatory Baseline Study (KHOBS), to be done along with a Canadian firm, Population Health Research institute. The study was stopped when the opposition, then headed by Pinayari Vijayan of the CPI(M), alleged data leak.

When Pinayari Vijayan became Chief Minister in 2016, Rajeev Sadanand pushed the same study, with the same Canadian partners, under the name, Epidemiological Surveillance. This was also given up when it became a controversy. But not one to give up, Sadanand initiated a move to compile the health data of about 10 lakh citizens, with their permission, over a 10-year period. This project, KIRAN (Kerala Information on Residents-Arogyam Network) was to be executed with the help of the Achutha Menon Centre for Medical Science and Technology of Sri Chitra Institute, Thiruvananthapuram. But then, information leaked out that it was the directors of the Canadian company who were funding the survey. Questions asked had no responses.

Rajeev Sadanand is also under suspicion of trying to favor two medical colleges that had been denied permission by courts to admit students for their MBBS course. Need one say more where the report of this committee will lead to?

Cyberspace is rife with speculation regarding the involvement of the Chief Minister’s daughter, T. Veena, in the deal. She is the MD of Bangalore-based IT firm Exalogic Solutions Pvt. Ltd., with an investment of Rs 100 crore. This company does business in the same field as Sprinklr. Further indictment came when it was reported that in the registration documents of the company, the address of the owner is given as AKG Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, and the nominee is Kamala Vijayan, wife of Pinayari Vijayan; her address was given as that of Pinayari Vijayan’s house at Thalassery. Earlier, media reports stated that during the last nation-wide strike, the company had a regular working day when Kerala was under a lockdown.

As Chief Minister, Pinayari Vijayan has made many foreign trips to seek investment in Kerala, particularly from Non-Resident Keralites. This brings me to the case of Dr. Jacob Thomas, the senior most serving member of the IPS in the State and currently MD of Metal Industries, Shornur, a Government of Kerala undertaking. The firm manufactures spades, pick axes, shovels etc. It has four officers and 36 employees, besides the MD. The salary of the senior most officer, the Works Manager, was Rs 43,890/- as on November 15, 2019.

Dr. Jacob Thomas invited the wrath of the IAS lobby after he sought permission to prosecute some of them as Director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau. The lobby tried its best to get him removed, but Pinayari Vijayan was in no mood to relent. The lobby threatened to go on mass casual leave. The Chief Minister called them and, according to a report in Mathrubhumi daily, said he had withheld sanction to prosecute the then Chief Secretary, K.M. Abraham, and the then Additional Chief Secretary, Tom Jose (current Chief Secretary, due to retire) in cases of disproportionate assets. He indicated he had protected another Additional Chief Secretary, Paul Antony (without naming him) in a case of nepotism.

The mass casual leave protest collapsed. But indirect pressure tactics continued till Jacob Thomas was shifted to a nondescript organization - Institute of Management in Government. K.M. Abraham retired and has been given a sinecure as ex-officio Secretary of Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), currently resisting audit by the CAG. Even the compensation offered to him is reportedly in violation of all rules.

The hounding of Jacob Thomas continued with cases initiated against him for saying publicly that the relief work, post the Ockhi typhoon, was not adequate and for publishing a book, ‘Swimming with the Sharks’, without prior permission from the government. He was under suspension for almost 18 months when the Central Administrative Tribunal ordered his reinstatement in an equivalent position. Hence his assignment as MD of Metal Industries with the same status of Director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, through order dated October 5, 2019.

On learning about the above appointment through the media, I complained to the Governor, Kerala, on October 16, 2019, on grounds that thought Dr. Jacob Thomas had accepted this low-level assignment, I am concerned as a citizen at the high cost incurred by the exchequer in granting him a designation, pay and perks, beyond the entitlements of the office he is now serving; and that this is tantamount to abuse of office by the appointing authority. I urged the Governor to ensure that the officer is posted to an office befitting his experience, grade and status, or ensure that his cost to the exchequer does not exceed that of his predecessor. The complaint was forwarded to the General Administration Dept. on December 3, 2019.

Meanwhile, in response to an application under the RTI Act, the Public Information Officer of General Administration Department provided a copy of the Government Order dated October 5, 2019 and nothing more. It mentions Rule 12 of IPS (Pay) Rules, 2016, which are a bundle of contradictions that need to be questioned.

No information was provided regarding the applications seeking prosecution of the three members of the IAS, and the file notes leading to denial of permission. Now, can anybody guess who is the king who kills and the minister who eats in our system of government?

The beauty is that while the king who kills is present all through the narrative, the minister who eats has not appeared at all. Please note that after the minister finishes eating there is (practically) no sign of the crime. Here, so long as evidence exists, the last word can only be that of the judiciary. And it will be the judiciary that will render any evidence irrelevant. 

       06 May 2020

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

LIFE IN TIMES OF A LOCKOUT

Well, for one who had been daddy sitting for almost 7 years, the lock down is only another name for staying at home. (Not that my dad was sick, or bed ridden. On the other hand, well into his 80s, he was far too active for his age. In a way, even for my age. And that was why I had to be around, to ensure that he did not suffer any fall or such mishap.) After his demise, the only change that had occurred in my routine was an outing for about an hour in the evenings to visit relations or some senior citizens in the neighborhood.  

It was the compulsion that came with the lockdown that made it unpalatable for the first few days. This was so, although it was amply clear that the only way of prevention was to keep social distance. In other words, be with yourself and your family, staying in the same house.

As days dragged on the main obsession was with news on the spread of the virus and the number of casualties- both, who were infected and those who had succumbed.

In Kerala the Chief Minster himself would give out the figures, ensuring that separate figures were mentioned of those who had come with infections from abroad. Piqued by this categorization, an NRI posted a message on social media that the CM should be more circumspect and bear in mind the conditions under which Malayalees were toiling out there to keep their relations here and the State itself economically better off.

The CM had probably taken on the briefing part himself after his Health Minster, who had been doing the briefing earlier, had kept blaming the Center for not doing enough scanning and segregation at the airports.

When lock down was announced apart from essential services, in Kerala, all other government offices were to work with 50 percent attendance every day, with the staff rotating each day. And it was to be a five-day week too.

The Central government offices too were required to work with minimum essential staff. 

But almost a week before the PM announced a three-week national lock down, the apex court had reduced the number of benches from 15 to 6. And when the national lockdown was announced it was reduced to a bench for considering urgent matters. 

We all know that it is only the courts that had been working as per schedules prepared by them, including crowd management (if at all we could call it management) through the number of cases listed for the day. So, there was no rationale in courts doing with namesake benches to deal with ‘urgent’ matters.

How these benches would work also would make one raise one’s eyebrows.

In the apex court, the bench would be in one court room and the advocates in another. The hearing would be conducted through video conferencing.

The Kerala High Court’s designated bench would hold sittings on a few notified days only.

It has been reported that all the cases that had been listed for hearing during the lock down days are being adjourned to Jul 2020, after the summer vacation.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court Bar Association has requested the court to do away with the summer vacation to make up for the lost working days of the court.

The enforcement of the lock down has also invited criticism from some quarters for the way police personnel had resorted to extra-legal methods to punish those who violated the lock down laws. For once, there is a need to condone this because wisdom through the ages tell us that those who are not taught at home to behave will have to learn it at the hands of the public (read police, here).

More importantly the great job done by these public servants, working for more than 12 to 15 hours at a stretch, in delivering food to the needy and assisting the health workers to track and quarantine those who had come into contact with suspected infected persons were a treat to the eyes. There have been reports of these teams facing stiff resistance in some pockets, including being attacked and pelted with stones.

The most heart wrenching scenes during the lockout were of migrant laborers, along with families, trekking back to their native places, hundreds of kilometers away, from Delhi and other cities. The grit amidst helplessness had to be seen to be believed. Some body rightly commented on social media that these poor people never resorted to hurling stones at policemen and security personnel or abusing them. Even their character was emulative when they would only accept the minimum that they needed from those offering food, water and fruits on their way.

The Prime Minister, while announcing the lock down, had clearly requested that the daily wage earners should be looked after by the employers till the situation got back to normal. If only those employers had resorted to paying the advance of their wages for a month and held them back wherever they were, and opted to recover the advance in instalments subsequently, a lot of hardship could have been avoided.

But unlike the migrant laborers, those who congregated at a Nizamuddin mosque created havoc with the national effort to contain the pandemic through social distancing and lock down. Reports indicate that participants of this congregation have been responsible for almost 60 percent of the spurt in cases reported thereafter. Not to mention the herculean task in tracking those who had come into contact with them and quarantining them.

Another alarming report has been of consignments from China being contaminated. It was reported that a few persons of a company in Mysuru, Karnataka who had handled some consignments from China had tested positive. And a couple of European countries too had reported that even the medical stores received from China were found contaminated.

There is this truism that the true worth of a person can be righty gauged only when he is in difficult times. It appears to be true of nations too. One report informed us that a plane loaded with masks, ventilators etc for a European nation was diverted to America because of a higher, cash down payment offered. The only thing missing is the clarity on the role of the US administration in the incidence.

The pandemic has exposed the underbelly of the international organizations like UNO and WHO. Particularly with China heading the UN Security Council on a rotational basis, effort to rake up the issue in the UN has not only failed but WHO is also alleged to be complicit in spreading the virus by relaying too much on the information fed by China only.

The way events have shaped, if somebody believes that it was the trial of a biological weapon gone awry, he cannot be blamed. Now China has also banned research into the origin of this outbreak from Wuhan.

Amidst all these dark clouds, the silver lining is the growth of India as a role model to deal with crises. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to his fellow countrymen to thank the Covid warriors by lighting a lamp or candle for 9 minutes at 9 PM on 5^th April was not only received with great aplomb by Indians, in India, it was welcomed equally well by people in Australia, UK, US of A and many more countries, large and small.

There have been reports also of Japan setting up a fund to persuade its companies in China to shift, back to Japan or anywhere else. The chances of many of them shifting to India are good. Such moves can be expected from many of the European and American establishments also.

And, yes, some body has rightly pointed out that India is now a pharmacy for the world. The demand of Hydroxychloroquine by the US of A, for which the President of the US had made a direct request to our Prime Minister, is indeed gratifying.

Unfortunately, there were unwarranted controversies raked up by the media who reported that Trump had threatened India with retaliation and Modi succumbed to it.

But then, media apart, there are many in this country whose only agenda seems to be belittling the nation and it elected leader, Narendra Damodardas Modi. This Covid season seems to establish not only Narendra Modi as a world leader but also this nation as a wonder, defeating a pandemic stoically amidst a lot of poverty.

The predictions from Nostradamus to Einstein are being recollected, of India’s rise to leadership among world’s nations. Something we can all be proud of and help to cheer us in these days of gloom.

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

14 Apr 2020