[HumJanenge] Re: subversion of the rti act

To:
Mr P M Ravindran

I do not know why I am repeatedly receiving such rude, scandalous and
ill conceived emails from you. Kindly stop sending me such emails. I
particularly object to phrases in your emails which betray disrespect
for the Constitution of India and its offices. I am given to
understand that you are an ex-serviceman, and I opine that stoppage of
your pension and other post-retirement benefits would be a fitting
penalty for your disrespect, and I sincerely hope that Madam
President, to whom you have addressed your offensive email, takes
swift and appropriate action.

Sarbajit Roy

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 7:56 AM, Ravindran P M <pmravindran@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ms Pratibha Devi Singh Patil, President of India,
>
> Firstly, please note that I am not endorsing copy of this e mail to the PM
> because I am amoung those who believe that the earlier the present incumbent
> is kicked out of that office the better it will be for the country.
>
> Next, I am writing this to you to bring to your attention the blatant
> subversion of the RTI Act by the public servants of whom you are the
> executive head and is responsible to set the wrongs right.
>
> Please see the DoPT OM No F/10/02/2008-IR dated 24 Sep 2010 in the document
> attached.
>
> Now, your attention is invited to Sec 6 of the RTI Act which is reproduced
> for your study:
>
> 6     (1)  A person, who desires to obtain any information under this Act,
> shall make a request in writing or through electronic means in English or
> Hindi or in the official language of the area in which the application is
> being made, accompanying such fee as may be prescribed, to—
>             (a)     the Central Public Information Officer or State Public
> Information Officer, as the case may be, of the concerned public authority;
>             (b)     the Central Assistant Public Information Officer or
> State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be,
>
> specifying the particulars of the information sought by him or her:
>
> Provided that where such request cannot be made in writing, the Central
> Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case
> may be, shall render all reasonable assistance to the person making the
> request orally to reduce the same in writing.
>       (2)
>
> An applicant making request for information shall not be required to give
> any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details
> except those that may be necessary for contacting him.
>       (3)           Where an application is made to a public authority
> requesting for an information,—
>             (i)     which is held by another public authority; or
>             (ii)     the subject matter of which is more closely connected
> with the functions of another public authority,
>
> the public authority, to which such application is made, shall transfer the
> application or such part of it as may be appropriate to that other public
> authority and inform the applicant immediately about such transfer:
>
> Provided that the transfer of an application pursuant to this sub-section
> shall be made as soon as practicable but in no case later than five days
> from the date of receipt of the application.
>
> Now look at the highlighted portion and you will realise that the DoPT is
> just trying to exploit the use of singular in Sec 6(3). Isn't this against
> the very spirit of the act? I am sure you will realise why this provision is
> per se important. How many of us really know the intricacies of the
> functioning of govt departments to know which public authority exactly holds
> which kind of information? (The pity is that till date none, including the
> information commissions, have published the info required to be published
> under Sec 4 of the RTI Act!) And even in one public authority we all know
> how the employees make you run from pillar to post to get just a simple job
> done. So it was really a very deliberate provision in the RTI Act to prevent
> the public servants from knowingly or unknowingly harassing the information
> seeker.
>
> One cannot overlook the fact that the applicant is seeking information with
> some definite purpose (though he doesn't have to disclose the purpose
> officially!) and he will not be interested in a five year plan to compile
> info from dozens of public authorities with just one application to one
> public authority. So let us accept it that in general any PIO will have to
> use this provision to send the application to 2 or in rare cases to 3 and in
> rarest of the rarest cases upto 5 other PIOs, which by no means can be
> considered unreasonable.
>
> In this context, one has to also recollect two other issues- one the motives
> of the DoPT and two the attitude of the information commissioners.
>
> You may recollect that the DoPT had also tried to SUBVERT the RTI Act by
> trying to argue that every complaint or appeal to the information commission
> has to be heard by all the information commissioners together! The
> ridiculousness of the argument does strike one  immediately. The DoPT
> ventured to make such a demand again because of the language used in Sec 18
> (1) which states that ' Subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall be
> the duty of the Central Information Commission or State Information
> Commission, as the case may be, to receive and inquire into a complaint from
> any person,—...' They want the Commission to be interpreted as the whole lot
> of commissioners sitting in one bench! Ridiculous on the face of it, isn't
> it? Fortunately this has not been agreed to but the last I heard on this
> issue was that the matter was being contested in Delhi High Court!
>
> The next issue I wanted to bring to your attention now is how the other
> provisions, which favour the citizens, are not so intricately analysed and
> implemented, even though there are absolutely no ambiguities in them.
>
> The first case is of Sec 5(2), dealing with appointment of APIOs. It reads
> as
> ' Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1) (dealing with
> appointment of PIOs), every public authority shall designate an officer,
> within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act, at each sub-divisional
> level or other sub-district level as a Central Assistant Public Information
> Officer or a State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be,
> to receive the applications for information or appeals under this Act for
> forwarding the same forthwith to the Central Public Information Officer or
> the State Public Information Officer or senior officer specified under
> sub-section (1) of section 19 or the Central Information Commission or the
> State Information Commission, as the case may be:..'
>
> Now again this a very important provision in favour of the citizen. The task
> of the APIOs is very clear- that is to accept applications (including, of
> course, the fees prescribed) and appeals meant for other public authorities
> and forward them to the concerned PIOs/FAAs or ICs. The purpose is also
> obvious, that is to help the citizens access info without running from
> pillar to post, with the added advantage of saving on postal charges with
> the assured accountability for delivering the document correctly! But it is
> the interpretation of the sub divisional level that is being misused to deny
> the citizens their right under this Act. Now what does 'every public
> authority shall designate... at each sub divisional level' mean? It needs to
> be analysed as follows.
>
> A village office is also a public authority. Can it designate an APIO at any
> sub divisional level? Definitely NO! So the clause actually becomes 'every
> public authority at sub divisional level shall designate an APIO...'
>
> Now does the clause restrict the task of the APIO to accepting
> applications/appeals only for the PIOs of the same department/ autonomous
> body? Again NO! In fact the liberal (if it should be considered so) and
> correct interpretation would mean that an APIO at any sub divisional level
> public authority can accept an application or 1st appeal to any other public
> authority (irrespective of the distinction between state and centre!) or any
> 2nd appeal to any IC!
>
> But what do you find in practice? While the SICs themselves have not
> designated any APIOs at any subdivisional level (for obvious reasons) they
> have wrongly interpreted the task of the APIOs in restricting them to
> accepting applications and1st appeals pertaining to their own
> departments/autonomous bodies only. ( The Kerala SIC had gone one step
> further and even written an illegal letter to the PIO of the office of the
> RDO, Palakkad not to accept any applications or appeals, contravening even
> the RTI Rules promulgated by the Govt of Kerala and in force then. That the
> Govt of Kerala has itself has been subverting the letter and spirit of the
> law by amending the rules is another cause for concern. But those details
> later.) As far as the central public authorities are concerned, for some of
> them, the APIOs at designated Head Post Offices have been tasked to accept
> applications and appeals meant for them. But this is a far cry from the
> actual provision in Sec 5 (2)!
>
> The next important subversion is of Sec 20(1) regarding imposition of
> penalty. It reads as ' Where the Central Information Commission or the State
> Information Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any
> complaint or appeal is of the opinion that the Central Public Information
> Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has,
> without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for
> information or has not furnished information within the time specified under
> sub-section (1) of section 7 or malafidely denied the request for
> information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading
> information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request or
> obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall impose a
> penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is
> received or information is furnished, so however, the total amount of such
> penalty shall not exceed twenty-five thousand rupees:...'
>
> Here the important thing to note is that the imposition of penalty is
> mandatory even if there has been only delay in providing the information.
> The delay is an obvious fact and there cannot be an opinion whether there
> has been any delay or not. The opinion can be only about the validity of the
> reasons for the delay.  You may try and recollect now in how many cases the
> mandatory penalty have been imposed in your own appeals and what were the
> valid reasons for the delay in other cases.
>
> I hope I have elaborated enough to drive home the point that this letter
> from the DoPT is yet another act of subversion of the law and the CIC is an
> accomplice!
>
> Yours truly
>
> P M Ravindran
> 2/18, 'Aathira'
> Kalpathy-678003
> Tel: 0491-2576042
>
> http://raviforjustice.blogspot.com
> 'Judiciary Watch' at www.vigilonline.com
> http://www.judicialreforms.org/
> http://www.roguepolice.com
> http://milapchoraria.tripod.com
>
>