[HumJanenge] Re: Day-1 of CIC RTI National Convention

Dear Murali

CIC Satyananda Mishra is not a "Dr." (that I know of) and neither am
I.

I think that CIC (SM) delivered a delightfully understated speech
to a) The PM b) Mr. Narainaswamy c) Mr.Pradeep Mishra/Secy.DoPT
urging intervention from the DoPT to continue to keep the RTI Act
simple and non-threatening enough for the mango people to
use. The trade off obviously will be that the DoPT will "negotiate"
that privacy of mantris, santri (babus) and tarntris(judges) will
be off-limits for RTI and that frivolous and vexatious persons
(aka RTI taxis) will be curtailed.

The negotiation has already started because the Govt is
subsidising Aruna Roy's parallel RTI convention and the NCPRI
/NAC gang of haramis/poodles/parasites will yet again claim
to exclusively represent the mango people of India and this time
will start negotiate on trivial things like "frivolous" is not defined
(whereupon the DoPT will promptly define it for them)









On Oct 12, 11:11 pm, Murali Krishnan <rti4citiz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> *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.*