[HumJanenge] Arbitrary disposal of large volume of cases sans hearing by the Odisha Information Commission

Arbitrary disposal of large volume of cases sans hearing by the Odisha  Information Commission has led to   widespread discontentment,  anger, frustration  and hopelessness among the RTI users

 

Dear friends,

Under Sections 18, 19 and 20  of RTI Act,  the Information Commission has been empowered  to  receive, hear, enquire and dispose the Complaints  and  Second Appeals and also to impose penalty on defaulting PIOs as and where required.   Needless to say, the hearing of the cases is crucial in the entire process of disposal of a case, simply for the reason that it  gives an opportunity of hearing to the concerned PIO, on whom lies the burden of proof as to whether he acted diligently to provide the requested information to the applicant. It is also important because the complainant/petitioner might raise a slew of critical issues on account of which the RTI users like him were deprived of access to information sought for, and which the Commission as per Section 19(8) should address to for a better administration of RTI regime in the concerned public authority in future. 

But unfortunately, Odisha Information Commission has been found unilaterally disposing a large bulk of the cases without holding any hearing on them. It neither makes an enquiry nor   gives anopportunity of hearing to any party to the case. It has been further noticed that while disposing the cases in the above manner, the Commission generally  directs  the concerned 1^st Appellate Authority  to  dispose the case  at their level and ask the concerned complainant, if necessary  to approach the Commission   again in the form of a complaint or second appeal, in case  he or she is dissatisfied with the decision of 1^st Appellate Authority.  

 To ascertain the number of cases disposed by the Commission in the arbitrary manner as mentioned above, an RTI Application was submitted to the office of Odisha Information Commission and the information received in response thereto is as follows-

  Cases disposed by the Commission  without hearing in  4 month period. 

Month  of 2011	State Chief Information Commissioner		Mr. Jagadanand, SIC		Mr. Pramod Mohanty, SIC
	No. of Complaint cases disposed	No. of second appeal cases disposed	No. of Complaint cases disposed	No. of second appeal cases disposed	No. of Complaint cases disposed	No. of second appeal cases disposed
August	54	NIL	77	Nil	156	Nil
September	63	NIL	59	Nil	123	Nil
October	107	NIL	24	Nil	82	Nil
November	150	NIL	160	Nil	283	Nil
Total	374	NIL	320	Nil	644	Nil

( Information obtained through RTI  on dt. 28.12.2011)

Remarks

a.       From the above table it is learnt that within period of four months (August – November 2011), the Commission has unilaterally and arbitrarily disposed a total of 1338 cases. If extrapolated, the figures for the year would amount to approximately. 5352.

 b.      When inquired  about  " why the Commission adopts such arbitrary method  of disposing  the cases, the clarification cited by the Commission is that  as a large bulk of the cases is pending  in the Commission, there is no option except  this procedure for disposing the cases with a view to reduce the volume of pendency.

c. When enquired about the rate of compliance  (providing  information to the  complainant),   the response of the Commission was " no such record is maintained  by the Commission".  It means  that the Commission is concerned about the rate of disposal of cases in its own arbitrary, but not so about the  actual rate of compliance of its orders for providing the information to the deprived applicants. Therefore,   the claim of the Commission in public forums that that there was compliance to the Commission's orders to the extent of 90 %  is false and deserves  to be discarded.

 D. Let us  go to other side of the story.  In large number of cases ( such as for instance CC No- 4165/2011 and CC No.- 2/2011) the 1^st Appellate Authorities are neither hearing nor disposing the cases. In fact,  the cases unilaterally disposed by the Commission are old ones which require  immediate hearing  and immediate delivery of information to the complainants and  penalty against the defaulter PIOs.  As the Commission doesn't enforce actual compliance in terms of delivery of information to the complainants   and no penalty is imposed on erring PIOs  for their failure to provide the information,  the net result is widespread discontentment  and anger  created among the deprived citizens. In a situation where the Complainant has at long last been ditched by the Commission, he simply feels hopeless about approaching the Commission again in the manner of filing a complaint or second appeal. There is only a burning anger and frustration left in them.  It has been gathered from the sources close to the complainants that  huge numbers of cases disposed unilaterally  by the Commission  has not resulted in any delivery of information the complainants had asked for but were unduly refused. Though some complainants have filed again theprevious  cases to the Commission, the latter s yet to begin deciding them.

 e. The above procedure adopted by the Commission has encouraged the PIOs  to disregard the RTI Act altogether . They are  showing a careless attitude to the RTI applications, being overconfident that there  is no fear of penalty  from the Commission.

   The Commission may feel a self-congratulatory satisfaction by dishing out the figures of reduced pendency, but in the process they have made RTI Act a casualty of their arbitrary rule. It would result in growing frustration and hopelessness among the RTI users and further boost to corruption and misfeasance across the state.

 Pradip Pradhan

M-99378-43482

Date-7.1.2012