The (Late) RTI Act
The Right to Information Act has been murdered!
Long live the Right to Information!
The Right to Information Act, 2005 got the President’s
assent and became law on 15 Jun 2005. The next 120 days were given to public
authorities to organize their records and get ready to provide information to
citizens when the law will be available to them to seek such information from
12 Oct 2005. However genetic disorders ensured that this law was born dead.
Though no formal death certificate has been issued, people are deluded into
believing that it is still something useful. Useful it indeed is, but not for
getting any information. Even when the idiots and traitors amoung public
servants continue to flout the law and deny information sought the never say
die activists in this field have found a new use for this law- to identify
atleast three idiots and traitors amoung public servants- the Public
Information Officer, the First Appellate Authority (if the head of the public
authority is not the FAA, then the head of the public authority also!) and the
Information Commissioner!
A wit had quipped long back that India was ruled by her
clerks. Today the subversion of the RTI Act proves that he was right. Because,
the only people who have gained by this Act are some of the worst idiots and
traitors amoung these very clerks who got rehabilitated as information
commissioners, post their retirement from regular employment. And it is these
very information commissioners who have ensured that the law was still born, as
far as the public is concerned!
The very first (Chief) information commissioner to be
appointed was Wajahat Habibulla who had retired as a Secretary to the
Government of India. Undoubtedly he was from the Indian Administrative Service
and the ‘honour’ of proving how much of an idiot/ traitor a member of this
cadre could be goes to none other than this country’s 1st CIC! The
events that led to this conclusion are as follows.
Realising how the consumer ‘courts’ established under the
Consumer Protection Act were cheating the consumers, NGOs and activists working
in this area got together and formed a Save Consumer Courts Action Council
(SCCAC)under the leadership of Sri Ayyappan Nair, publisher of a periodical
Upabhoktrhu Sabdam (later christened Upabhokthru Jagratha) from
Thiruvanathapuram). In a case filed by his Consumer Vigilance Centre against
the then President, Hassan Pillai, of the Kerala State Consumer Disputes
Redressal Commission (KSCDRC) the order of the High Court of Kerala (Consumer
Vigilance Centre Vs State of Kerala, 2004(3) KLT 1073) clearly observed that
the President, a former member of the same court, had mislead the court by
stating in his affidavit that he had not declared summer holidays for the
Commission when the records showed that he had indeed declared it. SCCAC
submitted a complaint on 17/8/2005, to the President, M B Shaw, of the National
Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), that Hassan Pillai should be
removed from office on this ground (of perjury). There being no response, an
application was filed with NCDRC on 24/3/2006 under the RTI Act, seeking
information on action taken on the complaint. There being no response
to it either, a complaint was filed on 6/5/2006, with the Central Information
Commission (as provided in Sec 18(1)(c) the RTI Act). (Meanwhile a letter dated
17/4/2006 was received from the NCDRC directing the complainant to approach the
State government. But it should be noted that this letter neither referred to
the application under the RTI Act nor could the response be construed as a
reply to that application!) And then comes the googly from the CIC! A letter
dated 25/7/2006 and signed by its director Nisha Singh said that the complaint (against
the central public authority!) was forwarded to the Palat Mohandas, Secretary
(actually he was the Chief information Commissioner) of Kerala State
information Commission!
The matter was taken up with Wajahat Habibulla and he
responded with an e mail on 6/8/2006 stating that he was calling for the
records and necessary action would be taken. But no, there was no action taken
nor any further communication from the CIC. So a copy of the complaint was
submitted again on 14/11/2006. Horror of horrors! The reply, dated 21/2/2007, I
got left no room for doubt that these public servants who are living off the
taxpayer (and looting him otherwise too) were amoung the biggest idiots and
traitors on the land! The reply read as follows: Since the appointments to the
state consumer disputes redressal commission are made by the state government
the complaint should be filed with the state information commission! (A gentle
reminder: the complaint under the RTI Act was filed with the Central
Information Commission because there had been no response to the application
submitted to the NCDRC, a central public authority!)
Given the repeated nature of the idiotic action of the
central information commissioner a complaint was submitted to the President to
remove Habibulla under Sec 14(3)(d) of the RTI Act. But since it would have
been the same clerical mafia that would have dealt with this complaint also and
approaching the court was a remedy worse than the ailment the pursuit for
information and justice ended there.
Even before the Right to Information Act , 2005 was
enacted by the Central Government many states had enacted some version of much
earlier, including some of the most backward states. But Kerala which prided
itself as the 1st fully literate state in the country was not amoung
them! Worse, even this central law has been subverted beyond recognition and by
none other than the information commissioners, led by its 1st Chief
Information Commissioner, Palat Mohandas, who had been the Chief Secretary to
the Government of Kerala till the previous day! The plight of the RTI Act in
the State had started even with the appointment of Palat Mohandas. Grabbing the
opportunity to live at taxpayers’ cost for another five years, Palat Mohandas
got himself appointed as CIC even while holding the office of the Chief
Secretary and when the illegality of the act was questioned publicly the post
was left vacant till he retired! He took over as CIC on 21/12/2005 after having
left the law on the limb for more than 6 months! And, suffice to say, throughout
the next five years, till he demitted office on 1/10/2010, he was only digging
nails on the coffin of the law he had been tasked, equipped, empowered and paid
to enforce! For their incompetence and treachery, Mohandas and his fellow commissioners
were sought to be removed by the Governor under Sec 17(3)(d) of the RTI Act. A
complaint was filed by an activist, P M Ravindran, on 7/11/2007 and by a
collective on 12/10/2008. But both these were used as the parcel in the game of
passing the parcel and finally vanished. But the complaint submitted during the
first Public Contact Program held by the then Chief Minister Ommen Chandy was
pursued doggedly till a reply dated 1/6/2012, signed by another Mohandas ,
Under Secretary, General Administration Department, informed that since the
information commission was a constitutional authority the government could not
interfere in its activities!
I am reproducing herewith Sections 17 and 28 of the RTI
Act. Readers should specifically note sections 17(3)(d) and 28(1)(d).
17 (1) Subject
to the provisions of sub-section (3), the State Chief Information Commissioner
or a State Information Commissioner shall be removed from his office only by
order of the Governor on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity after
the Supreme Court, on a reference made to it by the Governor, has on inquiry,
reported that the State Chief Information Commissioner or a State Information
Commissioner, as the case may be, ought on such ground be removed.
(2) The Governor may
suspend from office, and if deem necessary prohibit also from attending
the
office during inquiry, the State Chief Information Commissioner or a
State Information
Commissioner
in respect of whom a reference has been made to the Supreme Court under
sub-section (1) until the Governor has
passed orders on receipt of the report of the
Supreme Court on such reference.
(3) Notwithstanding
anything contained in sub-section (1), the Governor may by order
remove
from office the State Chief Information Commissioner or a State Information
Commissioner
if a State Chief Information Commissioner or a State Information
Commissioner, as the case may be,—
(a) is
adjudged an insolvent; or
(b)
has been convicted of an offence which, in the opinion of the Governor,
involves moral
turpitude; or
(c) engages during his
term of office in any paid employment outside the duties of his
office; or
(d) is,
in the opinion of the Governor, unfit to continue in office by reason of
infirmity of mind or body; or
(e) has acquired such financial or other interest
as is likely to affect prejudicially his
functions
as the State Chief Information Commissioner or a State Information
Commissioner.
(4) If the State Chief Information Commissioner or
a State Information Commissioner in any
way,
concerned or interested in any contract or agreement made by or on behalf of
the
Government of
the State or participates in any way in the profit thereof or in any benefit or
emoluments
arising therefrom otherwise than as a member and in common with the other
members of
an incorporated company, he shall, for the purposes of sub-section (1), be
deemed to be
guilty of misbehaviour.
28 (1) The competent authority may, by notification
in the Official Gazette, make rules to carry
out the provisions of this Act.
(2)
In
particular, and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power,
such rules
may provide for all or any of the
following matters, namely:—
(i)
the cost of the medium or print cost price of
the materials to be disseminated under
sub-section (4) of section 4;
(ii)
the fee payable under sub-section (1)
of section 6;
(iii)
the fee payable under sub-section (1)
of section 7; and
(iv)
any other matter which is required to
be, or may be, prescribed.
There are two quotes one would like to recollect. The
first one, translated from Malayalam, states roughly to the effect that those
who do not assert their authority will find themselves being walked all over by
scoundrels and the other one states that those who condemn politics as the last
refuge of scoundrels are bound to be ruled by scoundrels! Of more pertinence is
what an exasperated apex court judge commented ‘criminals like you should be
hung from the nearest lamp post, but I do not have the power to pass such an
order, hence…’! Now what can one say about politicians who are mere puppets in
the hands of their clerks who are idiots ad traitors?
Tailpiece: Uttar Pradhesh had a former high court judge,
M A Khan, as its first chief information commissioner. The controversial Chief
Minister of UP, Ms Mayavati, got him removed from that office. It was reported
later that he committed suicide after almost one year. In Kerala a former DIG
of Police, Natarajan, was suspended for interfering in an investigation
involving a land deal. For the next three years he did not do even a penny
worth of job but Ommen Chandy led Government had paid him Rs 32 lakhs as
regular payment during the period of suspension till the date of report!
P M Ravindran
Co ordinator, Save Right to Information Campaign
SAVE RIGHT TO INFORMATION 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!
