Beside other anti citizen provisions in the bill , the worst is making of a Head of department as judicial authority. HoD should only be an Appellate Authority and no more. The whole bill must be similar to the RTI Act 2005.
From: Chitta Behera <chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
To:
Sent: Saturday, 12 November 2011 7:20 PM
Subject: [HumJanenge] Citizens Grievance Redress Draft Bill 2011- how far citizen-friendly?
Citizens Grievance Redress Draft Bill 2011- how far citizen-friendly?
Spurred on by the strident campaign of Anna Hazare for a comprehensive anti-graft legislation in the shape of Jan Lokpal Bill, the Government of India in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances has already made its first positive response by way of mooting a draft law called Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011. This draft law along with an overview was placed on the website of the said Department w.e.f. 2nd instant for eliciting public response receivable by 23rd November 2011. The draft bill, purportedly covered under item no.8 (actionable wrongs) of Concurrent List in the Constitution aims at institutionalizing an administrative mechanism in each public authority Central or provincial for ensuring time-bound delivery of goods and services as per the norms laid down in their respective Citizens' Charters coupled with appellate authorities at various levels for redressing the public grievances arising from any act of violation of the said Charters. Worth recollecting that Anna Hazare used to describe such a kind of rights based dispensation as the major plank of his Jan Lokpal Bill, and in fact, the latest version of the Bill (2.3) in its Chapter-XIII titled 'Grievance Redressal System' provides for the authorities and procedures that are required for ensuring a hassle-free regime of guaranteeing rights and entitlements to the public at large across the country. It therefore behoves the informed citizenry at large including the campaigners of Jan Lokpal Bill to partake of and contribute to the great ongoing debate as to whether and how far the Government mooted Draft Bill would cater to the pent-up aspiration of multitude of Indians for an easy access to their multifarious rights and entitlements in respect of public goods and services.
While launching the draft bill in a joint press meet at New Delhi on 3rd Nov 2011 both Jairam Ramesh Minister Rural Development and V Narayanasamy Minister of State for Personnel asserted that it is only one component of a package of anti-corruption laws envisaged for enactment in winter session of Parliament commencing 23rd Nov, others being the Bills on Lokpal, Judicial Standards and Accountability, Public Procurement and Whistle Blowers Protection. Unlike Anna Hazare's original scheme of creating a single, integrated, monolithic law for addressing to issues of corruption and misfeasance at all levels across the State in its comprehensive sense of the term, that of the Government seems to split the whole dispensation into a few discrete, sectoral laws, each dedicated to tackle such issues in a specific, citizen-related domain of our multi-pillared and multilayered polity. From the standpoint of feasibility and optimality, the official scheme seems to present a better option, no doubt. If we build our anti-graft regime of governance on this centrifugal model, the lurking anxiety around Anna's model that it would vest absolute power in one colossal overlord watch-dogging the entire system from top to bottom would hold no ground. Yet, there also exists a flip side to the Government's model of decentralization, which if not remedied right now, might throw the entire system out of gear by way of pitting one law against another, and thereby rendering the existing scenario of mal-governance more chaotic and unwieldy. Given the preference for the decentralization model of the Government, what is however required utmost on the part of the latter is to ensure a seamless coherence and integrity among the host of laws bundled into the single basket, purported to reform the system of governance as a whole. By all reckoning, the RTI Act 2005 which being a pioneering statute heralded the much awaited era of governance reforms and is in place for last six years does also belong to this basket. The would-be, kindred laws need therefore to fall in line with letter and spirit of RTI Act. In a nutshell, the RTI Act 2005 which is on the whole an effective, user-friendly law and proved so by experience should serve as the matrix, respecting which the rest of the kindred laws need to be built up.
The duo of Ministers while releasing the draft bill did also vociferate on its semblance to the RTI Act in terms of structure and procedures. But the moot point arises, is this assertion correct? A proper answer to this poser necessitates a scrutiny of the basic nuances of the Draft bill on grievance redress from the perspective of the RTI Act. The first and foremost distinction that makes RTI Act a class apart is its Section 22 providing for its overriding power vis-à-vis the rest of laws and instrumentalities of the State including the draconian Official Secrets Act 1923, whereas the Section 50 of the Draft Bill taking a contrarian position reads, "The provisions of this Act are in addition to and not in derogation of any other law for the time being in force". This single provision if retained in the would-be Act would render it vulnerable and ineffective from the day one of its enforcement, since there are still hundreds of laws in force across the country which not only lack in any time-limit for the delivery of public goods and services, but also allow for discretion to the Ministers and bureaucrats in distributing largesse to the persons whomsoever they like to oblige.
The next striking difference between the two concerns the penalty provision against the errant public servants. While Section 20 (1) of RTI Act provides for a fine of Rs.250/- per a day's delay extending to a maximum of Rs.25,000/- leviable on the Public Information Officer proved guilty, Section 45 of the Draft bill merely and abstractly says that a 'lump-sum penalty' shall be imposed on the 'designated officers' and 'grievance redress officers' on account of the 'mala fide action' on their part and the rate of such penalty shall be 'specified from time to time as prescribed in the rules framed under this Act'. As regards the rule making power, Section 51 has vested it to the 'appropriate government', which going by the definition in Section 2(b) means Central Government or State Government. But, as everyone knows pretty well, the basic reason behind the success story of RTI Act is its clear provision for a specified amount of hefty fine in addition to the disciplinary proceedings, which drove the concerned officer, actuated by a fear of penalty, to act more or less as per the mandate of law. If the power to specify the amount of fine, as envisaged under the Draft bill, is placed under the Rule making power of the Centre and State Governments and that too exercisable by them from time to time, it may so happen that a Government might not volunteer to specify the amount of fine at all, or would specify such a ridiculously low amount as to be of no consequence to the habitual defaulters among the officers. In fact, as per the Section 7 of the recently enforced Delhi (Right of Citizen to time bound delivery of services) Act, 2011 the defaulting officer is liable to pay only Rs.10/- per day's delay, maximum amount being limited to Rs.200/-. It is now an open secret that the Delhi Act has remained, nay, shall ever remain a non-starter precisely on account of its ludicrous provision around penalty. Thus, if the Central Government really wants the public servants to deliver the public goods and services timely and properly as per the citizens charter, the proposed draft law itself, like the RTI Act, ought to specify a hefty amount of penalty against the errant officer, and shouldn't abandon this crucial matter to the discretionary rule-making power of the Centre or States.
As is well known, the RTI Act under Section 25 provides for a comprehensive annual report on the state of implementation of the Act as prepared by the concerned Information Commission to be submitted to the Parliament or State legislature, as the case may be, by the respective Government. It is a wholesome provision in the sense that the legislators of country are being kept abreast of the doings or misdoings of the public authorities in respect of the duties cast on the latter for giving effect to the mandate of the concerned law. But, woefully enough, such a provision is conspicuously absent from the draft law on grievance redress.
Last but not the least, unlike the RTI Act which to its credit is a citizen-friendly law in fullest sense of the term, the proposed draft law on public grievances, for all its pro-citizen gestures, accommodates a highly pernicious provision potentially poised against the appellant citizens vide Sections 23 and 39, which are spaciously captioned as 'Proceedings before the Commission to be judicial proceedings'. Clothed in the hard-hitting professional jargons of law, it defies comprehension even by an average lawyer, let alone the common citizens whom the proposed law ironically seeks to serve and save. The provision says, all proceedings before the Grievance Redressal Commission at Centre or in a State "shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of sections 193 and 228 of the Indian Penal Code and the Commission shall be deemed to be a civil court for the purposes of sections 345 and 346 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973". Precisely speaking, Section 193 of IPC provides for 'punishment for false evidence', which may extend to 3 years of imprisonment of either description coupled with an unspecified amount of fine, while its Section 228 provides for punishment for 'Intentional insult or interruption to public servant sitting in any stage of a judicial proceeding', which may extend to six months of simple imprisonment or a fine of Rs.1000/- or both. Coming to CrPC, its Section 345 prescribes 'Procedures in certain cases of contempt' that may result in imposition of a fine extending to Rs.200/- and in default of its payment, simple imprisonment for maximum 1 month. Section 346 of CrPC prescribes 'Procedure where Court considers that case should not be dealt with under Section 345', which vests the Court with the power inter alia to forward the case of an offender to a Magistrate, who shall deal with the case, 'as if it were instituted on a police report'. Under the circumstances, the proponents of the draft bill should and must explain, against whom such draconian provisions are mooted, if not the common citizens, in whose name it has been dedicated.
(Chitta Behera, 4A Jubilee Tower, Choudhury Bazar, Cuttack-9, Mobile: 9437577546, Dt 12.11.2011)
