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Arvind Kejriwal has been in Orissa since 11th November. It has been a great opportunity for me to spend some time with him as he has gone about his engagements here.
Yesterday, we spent most of the day together in a workshop organised by the Orissa Soochana Adhikar Manch - which is a forum of NGOs and activists working on RTI related issues. It was an interesting coincidence that this event was organised on the eve of the State Information Commission completing 2 years in existence. The Manch in collaboration with Parivartan and supported by the government had carried out awareness and training camps on RTI in all district headquarters and other major towns of Orissa last year, which had resulted in the filing of several thousands of RTI applications. It also helped bring together activists all over the state who have been using RTI as well as promoting its use in the community. Yesterday was an occasion to share the progress of the RTI movement of the state with activists coming from many parts of the state.
The program was held at CYSD - a leading NGO of Orissa and was attended by about 60-70 people including Prof. Radhamohan - the State Information Commissioner, Mr. Jagadanand - CYSD, Mr. Panchanan Kanungo - Ex-minister, Justice Mishra (High Court Judge - retd.) and Mr. Rabi Das (Eminent Journalist). During the workshop, representative of the Right to Food Campaign in Orissa presented the analysis of the State Information Commissions decisions. This is the work that has been supported by AID as initiated by Aravind. Although initially it was intended to look at all the 800 or so judgement given by the SIC, eventually it was decided to exclude the decisions from the first year of SIC as it was felt the commission was in its infancy. Out of the decisions in 2007, only those given in the period Jan-Mar 2007 were taken up. Out of these, quite a few had to be dropped from the analysis as they involved complex legal matters that needed expert opinion. Hence, only about 20 decisions were analysed in detail. Some of the findings of this analysis were as follows:
1. Frequency of Disposal of cases and Pendancy
It was presented that the number of cases disposed by the two state information commissions is of the order of 20 or so per month per commissioner. There are two commissioners in Orissa. At this rate of disposal, already there are 800 cases pending before the commission and the estimated time it will take to hear any new case will be no less than about 20 months or so. This will be the surest way of causing the public to lose faith in RTI and it may go the way many other legislation such as the Consumer courts, Lokpal etc. have gone - that is to become irrelevant.
2. Imposition of Penalty
It was found that only 19 out of 800 cases, penalty has been imposed by the commission so far and only in 3 cases the same has been paid by the concerned PIO/government official. Few of the penalty cases have been taken to the High court and stay order has been obtained. As rightly pointed out by Aravind, penalty and pendancy are inter-linked in the fact that if the SIC imposed penalty more frequently, less cases will come to it as PIOs will be afraid of escalation and provide information more pro-actively. Out of the 20 cases analysed, many (at least 16 of them or 75%) could have been fit for imposition of penalty for the following reasons:
- Lack of any response from PIO
- Failure to provide information within stipulated time
- Willfully withholding information or supplying incomplete information
- Failure to forward the application
- Willful denial of info. even under direction of IC
3. Miscellaneous issues with the way orders have been passed The following issues were found in the way the orders have been passed and recorded: - Date of registration of case at the commission's office was found missing in number of cases making it difficult to calculate how long it took the commission to hear the case and dispose
- Nature of info. requested by the original applicant is not mentioned in the order
- Categorisation of cases as direct complaint to commission or second appeal is not mentioned in many cased (18 out of 20)
- Names of PIO and first appellate officers missing in 5 out of 20 cases.
- Ground of appeal or complaint is not recorded in 12 out of 20 cases analysed.
3. Failure to act as a Monitoring and Recommending Authority Although the commission is mandated to recommend to government requisite amendments in the rules for better impact as well as act as a proactive monitoring authority for the government in its implementation of the RTI rules as regards to suo moto declaration for instance, it wa felt that it has not done the same to the extent it could have. After these findings were presented, the same was analysed and further commented on by many speakers including the State Information Commissioner himself. Prof. Radhamohan very magnanimously welcomed for such regular scrutiny of public institutions so that necessary course correction can be achieved. He also cited the severe lack of resources with the SICs for many of the lacunae. He offered to work with civil society organisations and volunteers on many of the issues such as pendancy, where many of the pending cases could perhaps be sorted out through mutual discussions facilitated by volunteers. In the afternoon, a team from the workshop went to the Information Commission's office and met Mr. D. N. Padhy - the Chief Information Commision and presented to him the recommendation of the workshop - mainly the issue of pendancy and lack of imposition of penalty. Mr. Padhy took the plea that he the SIC has tried to be fair and balanced and also protect its decisions from being challenged in courts. How ever he did welcome the suggestions and offered to look in to the same. In the evening Arvind visited the office of the Human Development Foundation - a new social sector 'think tank' and met with a cross section of social sector activists, professionals, academics and had an interaction on local self governance as an answer to much of the ills of the society that we see around us. His narration of his experience from visiting tribal areas of Kashipur inn Raygada district and parts of Koraput district was touching. It was agreed by all that it is in empowerment of the community to be able to take their own decisions by a proper Panchayatraj mechanism is the need of the hour. All in all it was an exhilarating day in the company of an inspiring individual. Regards, Dhanada |
