Press Release By NCPRI, New Delhi On RTI

PRESS RELEASE

Peoples’ hearing held and resolutions forwarded to the Information Commissions prior to the Annual Convention of Information Commission.

11 October, 2012, Delhi: On the occasion of the 7th anniversary of Right to Information, the Public Hearing organized by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) bringing together 400 RTI users from 16 states and held a day before the annual convention of State and Central Information Commissioners, which is to be addressed by the Prime Minister, resulted in many resolutions drafted on the basis of people’s experience of using RTI for 7 years being forwarded to the government. Also significant discussions on the recent Supreme Court on the appointment of Information Commissioners and its current and potential impact were discussed threadbare. 

Speaking about the recent Supreme Court judgment, Ms. Deepak Sandhu exhorted RTI users to defend the simplicity of the procedures laid down in the existing RTI Act and not to complicate it with legal processes and formalities. Mr. Shailesh Gandhi former Commissioner stated that the recent Supreme Court judgment will only exacerbate the problem of pendency. “Today if five Information Commissioners are able to dispose of 15000 cases every year, the present judgment of the Supreme Court will reduce the disposal rate to less than 25% of current capacity. This judgment will undermine the efficacy of the RTI Act and will ultimately subject users to even longer waits and delay.”     

   

Speaking about the Right to Information, Mr. Kamal Tank from RTI Manch in Jaipur, lamented that about 9500 cases were pending in Rajasthan, while Pradip Pradhan, RTI activist from Orissa highlighted that 8000 cases are pending in the Orissa State Information Commission. Ms. Geeta Potsangbam representing a Manipur woman’s organization called Machaliema stated that this is a right they are determined to defend at all costs. “In Manipur we have as many as 800 activists who have formed 48 associations across 4 districts to advance this right and ensure that we break the apathy and indifference of the Commissioners” she added. Shanu a physically challenged women residing n Delhi slum shared her travails in accessing information about why her ration had been stopped without any prior information given to her.  Not willing to give up, she filed a second appeal and is awaiting the response from the Commission. But it was the startling revelations of Mr. Abey George a spokesperson of the anti-nuclear struggle of Kudankulam that exposed the real state of affairs. “We filed an RTI case two years ago on the safety of the nuclear plant and it took the Commission a year and a half to respond and when they did respond they do so with a decent order but the government have decided to ignore it and till date we have not got the safety order” he shared.   

Given the mounting pendency cases, which was one of the major complaints of all RTI users, Anjali Bhardwaj, NCPCRI pointed out that even the Central Information Commission is not free of this malaise as it has as high as 28000 pendency cases at present. In this connection one of the key resolution mooted at the meeting was “well defined norms and standards of functioning of information commissions should be adopted.” In this connection it was pointed out that the “recent judgment of the Supreme Court effectively halves the number of commissioners without increasing the total number of commissioners in each information commission and without laying down norms on time-bound disposal of cases at the commission. This will make the RTI ineffective and impede peoples’ fundamental right to information.”  

Shri Wajahat Habibullah commenting on the resolution mooted at the meeting demanding the time bound disposal of cases at the Commission, emphasized the point “unless Section 4 of the Act is not implemented effectively obligating the government to educate the public about all their rights and entitlements, the number of pendency cases will not decrease.” Speaking in support of this appeal, Ms. Deepak Sandhu, Central Information Commissioner assured activists that a 10 day initiative will be implemented in December to monitor compliance of public authorities with the orders of the Commission. She also suggested that the number of commissioners and support staff be appropriately increased to deal with the issue of pendency without affecting the quality of the orders passed by the Commission.

A resolution was passed to this effect that the norms of functioning of information commissions be defined and a mechanism for time bound disposal of cases be adopted. The number of commissioners for each Commission must be determined on the basis of these norms. 

It was also resolved that no case should  be disposed of until either a penalty is levied and recovered and Information Commissioners must ensure that penalties imposed by them are recovered and are entered into the ACR/service record of the concerned official.  

Shri Balwinder Singh an RTI activist from J&K in his impassioned speech urged the government to set up appropriate mechanisms to protect RTI users and the whistleblowers. In the same vein since many other RTI users shared their experience of being intimidated in the process of seeking information,  a resolution was passed urging government to pass a directive mandating that in case of an attack on an RTI user the information sought by the applicant be disclosed and put out in the public domain immediately. Celebrating some of the landmark judgments given by information commissions, citizens spoke of the judgment of  Shri Wajahat Habibullah which included compensation awarded to widows residing in Delhi whose pensions were peremptorily stopped without informing them. In a recent instance Smt. Annapurna Dikshit, CIC has directed the Legislative Assembly of Delhi to publicize the proceedings of the assembly as most citizens have no access to information on the legislations passed and questions raised on the floor of the house .

The Public Hearing was organised by NCPRI in collaboration with other civil society groups including Satark Nagrik Sangathan, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Transparency International, CHRI, Accountability Initiative, JOSH, Pardarshita, NFIW, CFAR, Rajasthan RTI Manch, Sanskriti Foundation and Inclusive Media for Change.

For more information please contact Farah at 95605.11667 or Nandini Dey at 99531.53445