To:
Mr Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar
Deputy Secretary cum Joint Registrar
Central Information Commission
New Delhi
Cc:
1. Mr Satyananda Mishra
Chief Information Commissioner
2. Ms. Anita Gupta
Transparency Officer
Date: 30 May 2012
Dear Sir,
COMPLAINT AGAINST ANTIQUATED INFORMATION ON THE WEBSITE OF THE CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
As per the "suo-motu" disclosure under Sec 4(1)(b)(ii) on the Commissions website, one of your duties is "Monitoring of website of the Commission".
Since it is one of your duties, I lodge the following COMPLAINT with you.
1. On the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/assets-of-ics.htm (DECLARATION OF ASSETS)
- IC Information Commissioner and IC Basant Seth have been given the same serial numbers
- The asset details of IC Rajiv Mathur and IC Vijai Sharma have not been uploaded although they were administered the oath of office more than 3 months ago
2. From the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/PublicNotices.htm it appears that the last time the Commission issued a public notice was in September 2009.
Please upload all the public notices issued after that date. It is difficult to believe that the Commission has not issued any public notices for two and a half years !
3. On the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/HCRulings.htm (HIGH COURT RULINGS) many recent HC rulings related to RTI and CIC have not been uploaded. I know of several such important rulings, which should be on the CIC website but no one in your office has taken the trouble of uploading them. The Commission has a Joint Secretary (Law) – Mr Akash Deep Chakravarti – and I am sure he keeps himself updated of the important and latest cases.
Similarly on the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/SCRulings.htm (SUPREME COURT RULINGS) the latest decision of the SC on powers of the Commission to direct disclosure of information, has not been uploaded.
4. On the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/Reports/MPR-Jan12.htm (MONTHLY DISPOSAL) the last Monthly statistics are for January 2012 – 5 months old !
On the other hand, "Minutes of Meetings" of the Commission show that on 18/5/2012, the Commission already discussed the April 2012 disposal rates !
Is there some "STATE SECRET" in the disposal statistics for February, March and April 2012, that ordinary citizens are being denied access to them ?
5. Under the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/procedure.htm ("WHAT DO WE DO"), only Sec 18 of the RTI Act has been reproduced. I am sure, you must be aware, that the Commission also has powers under Sec 19, Sec 20 as well as recommendatory powers under Sec 25. All these should be mentioned also on that same page.
6. In the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/state_chief__information_commissioners.htm (CICs OF STATES) the information contained is antiquated. It seems it has never been updated at all !
All those CICs and ICs of States have demitted office.
If you cannot regularly update such information on the Commissions website, it is better not to have such information at all.
7. In the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/EnqyReports.htm (ENQUIRY REPORTS OF CIC) the last enquiry report is of 28/11/2008. Is it that CIC has not ordered any Enquiry since then – for three and a half years ?
8. In the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/cic_netizen/cic_minutes.asp (MINUTES OF MEETINGS) the Minutes are being updated very very late, as shown in the following table (only for the year 2012):
I do not know the reasons for such delays, but uploading the Minutes 30 days after the meeting has taken place (or even 15 days ), has no meaning at all.
9. As per the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/Events.htm (EVENTS) the last "event" was on 23rd January 2009 – over three and a half years ago. Are you really sure that no "event" has taken place since then ?
10. Probably that is why the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/ForthComingEvents.htm (FORTHCOMING EVENTS) leads to a blank page !
11. The link: http://www.cic.gov.in/Legal%20Opinions.htm (LEGAL OPINIONS) contains only one opinion – dated 17-07-2007 . Is it possible that there are no "Legal Opinions" for the last 5 years ?
12. In the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/ArticlesOfCIC.htm (RELATED ARTICLES) the last article that has been uploaded is by one Mr T.N. Krishnamoorthi – on 6th March 2009 !
13. There are two "RELATED LINKS" available at: http://www.cic.gov.in/RelatedLinksOfCIC.htm
Neither of them work !
14. From the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/LMOrders.htm (LANDMARK ORDERS OF THE SIC's) it appears that only one SIC has passed a landmark order - EVER ! And that too, in 2008 !
From the above examples, it is quite obvious that the CIC website contains antiquated information and is not updated on a regular basis.
As someone who is responsible for "Monitoring the website of the Commission", you should be aware that the DARPG had released"Guidelines for Indian Government Websites" in February 2009 and these are now an "integral part of the CSMOP". These guidelines can be downloaded from:
http://darpg.nic.in/darpgwebsite_cms/Document/file/Guidelines_for_Government_websites.pdf
These guidelines require (the word used is "MUST") that the Government websites be regularly updated.
The above mentioned guidelines also require that there should be a "User Feedback" section. Since there isn't one on the Commissions website, I have had to write this long letter to you !
Since this is a "Feedback" on the website of the Commission, I expect that you take into account my comments and also inform me regarding the action you take.
Even if you do not plan to take any action on my comments, please at least inform me so.
Thanking You,
From: Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com>
To: s.mishra <s.mishra@nic.in>; satyananda mishra <satyanandamishra@hotmail.com>
Cc: humjanenge <humjanenge@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 9:35 AM
Subject: [HumJanenge] Pendency in the Central Information Commission
To:
Shri Satyananda Mishra-ji
Chief Information Commissioner of India
Central Information Commission
August Kranti Bhawan
New Delhi
By EMAIL
18-Aug-2012
Respected Sir
On behalf of the members of the "Humjanenge" RTI mailing lists, having
13,971 subscribers, of which I am a Moderator, I am constrained to
report / suggest as follows, in the larger public interest.
Our members are AGGRIEVED that since April 2012 the Hon'ble Commission
has stopped the practice of reporting its monthly disposals and also
the pending backlog on "cic.gov.in" . It is pertinent that the last
disclosed statistics reveal that upwards of 3,000 fresh cases are
being received each month, the monthly disposal is allegedly about
2,000 cases, and the backlog of 25,000 cases would take at least 1
year to clear.
We are now caused to say that the monthly figures published so far are
spurious, fictitious and are not borne out by the number of decisions
independently published on the Commission's other website
"rti.india.gov.in".
To illustrate, the Commission's other website reveals that from
1-July-2012 till today decisions / orders for 2,783 matters have been
published. Our members at cost of great time and personal effort have
determined that about 1310 matters (47%) are either merely a)
transfers to a First Appellate Authority or b) determination that case
has been previously decided.
The net effective disposal rate works out to 1473 matters in 29
effective working days, ie a SHOCKING disposal of ONLY 50 decisions
per day for the Commission as a whole. On the average it appears that
each information Commissioner is only deciding 7 matters per day. At
this rate the pending backlog will take over 3 years to get cleared.
As it seems that none of the Information Commissioners at the present
time are qualified or knowledgeable in Statistical methods, we submit
that the Commission must dispose of at least 300 pending cases every
day if the present backlog has to be cleared within the next 12
months. This translates into about 35 cases each day per Information
Commissioner, including yourself.
Our members are also AGGRIEVED that whereas Information Commissioners
such as Ms. Sushma Singh are promptly disposing of Complaints within
10 days of receipt, other Commissioners, including yourself, take up
to a year to address them. The citizens ought not to be subject to
such arbitrary actions on part of the Commission especially since the
Commission's pro-active disclosure u/s 4(1)(b)(iv) of RTI Act is so
incomplete and evasive on this aspect.
Our members are further AGGRIEVED that whereas enlightened
Commissioners like Smt. Sushma Singh have readily grasped the concept
that Complaints u/s 18 are an EXTRA-ORDINARY remedy needing prompt and
PRIORITY action, the rest of the Commission still persists in equating
Appeals and Complaints as equivalent and according the same priority
to both.
Finally, our members are AGGRIEVED that Mr. Pankaj Shreyaskar, despite
being from the Indian Statistical Service has deliberately suppressed
and manipulated the statistics of disposals by the Hon'ble Commission
to bring about this sorry state of affairs.
We therefore suggest that this email be placed before the Commission
at its next meeting and you exercise your powers under Section 12(4)
of the Act to direct that each Commissioner must endeavour to dispose
of at least 25 cases each day from here on so that some semblance of
sanity is maintained. We also suggest that Mr. Pankaj Shreyaskar be
transferred out and another Statistical Services officer be deputed in
his place.
with best wishes
Sarbajit Roy
New Delhi
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