Re: [HumJanenge] Pendency in the Central Information Commission

Follow up through an RTI N vikramsimha , KRIA Katte , #12 Sumeru Sir M N Krishna Rao Road , Basvangudi < Bangalore 560004. --- On Sat, 18/8/12, C K Jam <rtiwanted@yahoo.com> wrote: From: C K Jam <rtiwanted@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [HumJanenge] Pendency in the Central Information Commission To: "humjanenge@googlegroups.com" <humjanenge@googlegroups.com> Date: Saturday, 18 August, 2012, 5:28 PM No reply and no action on the original complaint dated 30 May 2012 and the reminder on 13 July 2012. Time to send another reminder ! To:  Mr Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar  Deputy Secretary cum Joint Registrar  Central Information Commission  New Delhi                                                                            13 July 2012 R E M I N D E R No. 1 Dear Sir, Ref: My COMPLAINT against antiquated information on the website of the  Central Information Commission – dated 30th May 2012 This has reference to my above mentioned COMPLAINT regarding antiquated information available on the website of the Central information Commission, dated 30th May 2012 and diarized in the Commission vide Diary Nr. 139578 dated 5th June 2012. Since then, I have been regularly visiting the website of the Commission and found that there is no change as yet in any of the items/pages which were stated in the Complaint.  I once again request you to look into my Complaint and take necessary action on a urgent basis. Thanking You, ============================================================ 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): Date of the Commissions Meeting Date/Time PDF Minutes created (assumed uploaded on same date) 8-5-2012 22-5-2012 at 12:07:09 PM 24-4-2012 7-5-2012 at 3:32:49 PM 13-03-2012 4-4-2012 at 12:00:53 PM 10-01-2012 9-2-2012 at 2:57:48 PM 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