[HumJanenge] Day-1 of CIC RTI National Convention

12 October 2012

To be published on 16.October.2012

The 7th National Convention of Information Commissioners organised by the Central Information Commission at the DRDO Bhawan got off to a steady start and ended with an unexpectedly explosive finish.

A nuanced speech by Chief Information Commissioner Dr. Satyananda Mishra in the presence of the PM Dr. Manmohan Singh and MoS V. Narayanswsamy highlighted the present difficulty faced by India's Information Commissions, the highest Appellate bodies for the fledgling Freedom of Information law. The Supreme Court of India ruled last month that half the members of the FOI tribunals must either be eminent judges or retired justices of the Supreme Court considering the "judicial temperament and discipline" required for sensitive information disclosure.

Dr. Manmohan Singh responded by cautioning that the right to information for citizens must be weighed against the right to privacy of India's politicians and judges who are increasingly facing the heat from an army of  "frivolous and vexatious"  RTI activists prying into even the business dealings of the family members of Sonia Gandhi (the leader of India's ruling junta) armed with this law and a series of irregular decisions from a former RTI activist Mr. Shailesh Gandhi (who is not related to Sonia Gandhi)  who was appointed as an Information Commissioner.

The Convention concluded with a dramatic speech from another RTI activist, the mercurial Dr. Sarbajit Roy, India's first RTI applicant and a perpetual thorn in the flesh of the Information Commission. In 2010 Dr. Roy got the Commission to stop work for 3 days after the Delhi High Court held the then Chief Information Commissioner Mr. Wazahat Habibullah had exceeded his powers and was functioining illegally. Today Dr. Roy and Mr Habibullah faced off again before 500 Information Commissioners and RTI activists. Dr. Roy accused Mr. Habibullah of ignoring and sweeping under the carpet "numerous serious complaints" made to him concerning Mr. Shailesh Gandhi's functioning and refusing to constitute a Full Bench in 2009 to settle a controversial decision which pitched 4 Information Commissioners individually against Mr. Shailesh Gandhi. The matter thereafter went to Court and in 2012 the Delhi High Court, in a rare departure, trenchantly criticised Mr. Shailesh Gandhi for his "lack of judial decorum, discipline and improper conduct" for ignoring the decisions of his peers. A few months later the Supreme Court extrapolated that all India's Information Commissioners needed judicial temperament and legal experience of 20 years to discharge their duties. Today all the Information Commssioners affirmed as one that they too possessed the judicial bent of mind, and that the occassional rotten apple did not prove the rule.

The Government is likely to move a review application to the Supreme Court's findings shortly, and Mr. Shailesh Gandhi is gathering numbers to pass a "sense of the house" resolution opposing the Court's excessive interference in matters within the administrative domain. Dr. Sarbajit Roy in turn stressed that the past year at the Central Information Commission was "annus horribilis" with Court strictures and even the top Law Officer of the Commission filing an unprecedented Writ Petition alleging biased and prejudiced orders emanating from Mr.Shailesh Gandhi in collusion with a set of frivolous and vexatious RTI applicants.

The tug-of-war will conclude tomorrow.