[IAC#RG] My Public Grievance on appointing CIC Information Commissioners

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From:

To:

1) Dr. Man Mohan Singh,
Prime Minister of India, by
Principal Secretary to Prime Minister
"oo.prlsecypmo@nic.in"
Secretary to Prime Minister
"oo.ramanujam@gov.in"

2) Smt. Sushma Swaraj,
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha
"sushmaswaraj@hotmail.com, sushma.swaraj@bjp.org"

3) Smt. Sonia Gandhi,
Chairperson NAC
"chairperson@nac.nic.in, dhiraj.s@nac.nic.in"

cc:

4) Mr. Ajit K. Seth,
Cabinet Secretary,
"cabinetsy@nic.in"

5) Mr. Shymal K. Sarkar,
Secretary Dept of Personnel & Training,
"secy_mop@nic.in"

6) Mr. Manoj Joshi,
Jt. Secretary Dept of Personnel & Training,
"jsata@nic.in"

Dear Sir / Madam,

Sub: My Public Grievance on appointing Information Commissioners

Please find enclosed a copy of my Public Grievance lodged today on the President of India's online facility. I am an aggrieved Right To Information ("RTI") user and subscriber to the popular movement known as "India Against Corruption"

Dr. Anna Hazare and India Against Corruption have issued a public Appeal and initially asked Indian citizens not to vote for either the Congress Party or the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) unless all the 5 vacant posts of Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission are selected exclusively from eminent RTI activists and civil society experts who have applied for the post.

Their Appeal may be viewed online at http://saverti.webege.com

Dr. Hazare and India Against Corruption have come to know that the Prime Minister (Cong.) and the Leader of Opposition (BJP) have mutually decided that maximum number of retired bureaucrats from among their pre-selected candidates shall be appointed as Information Commissioners. The candidates for the vital post of Chief Information Commissioner have also been corruptly restricted to either Mr.P.K. Misra (former Secretary DoPT) or to the senior-most of the present Information Commissioners (who are also all former bureaucrats) in a throughly irregular and unprescribed manner.

It would thus seem that the applications which were solicited and inserted in the newspapers and on the DoPT's website are a only device devised to obscure predetermined selections by a process best described as "horse trading". It is certainly strange that all the previous Chief Information Commissioners without exception were formerly Secretaries to the Govt. of India.

Dr Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption stress that sub-section 12(5) of the Right to Information Act specifies that

"The Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners shall be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance."

This clause does not specify that only retired bureaucrats shall be appointed to these posts. Neither is it envisaged, either in its letters or in its spirit, that this clause is to serve as the vehicle for retired bureaucrats to retain their luxurious perks of office as sinecures for services they rendered while in office.

From the repeated improper practice of appointment of Chief Information Commissioners exclusively from the bureaucracy, a popular perception has now taken strong hold that the Prime Minister and BJP have corruptly decided that Mr. Pradeep Kumar Misra will be appointed as next Chief Information Commissioner and they have taken their corrupt decision without issuing any notice or publicly seeking applications for the post.

It seems therefrom the present Government and the Opposition BJP only appoint pliable persons in such sensitive positions who know the tricks by which one ex-government officer will help another government officer to escape from giving information about their parties. A pliable person who will never impose the RTI Act's mandatory penalties on the bureaucracy so that he will get to keep his posh bungalow in Delhi after retirement.

The citizens and affected RTI users are concerned that Mr. Pradeep Kumar Misra is such an agreed pliable person and it has been fixed between the Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh (of the Congress Party) and the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Smt. Sushma Swaraj (of the Bharatiya Janta Party) that Mr.P.K.Misra and many other such pliable persons will be selected to the Central Information Commission and the legitimate claims/applications of honest and eminent RTI experts and persons from Civil Society shall be corruptly ignored by an unprescribed device of a "Screening Committee" which is packed with similarly pliable persons.

Accordingly Dr Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption have issued their present appeal, and as an affected user of RTI Act processes I am sufficiently aggrieved by their call, seeing my rights to a fair RTI appellate process being hitherto rendered a nullity by appointment of pliable ex-bureaucrats and former public servants, to protest the selection procedures as ultra-vires and to demand that the appointments be honest, fully transparent and conducted openly.

PRAYER: Kindly see to it that in this round of appointments not even 1 (one) ex-public servant is selected so as to redress the gross imbalance in backgrounds and experience prevailing in the Central Information Commission, and that all its selections are conducted publicly and transparently.

NB: Please preserve all correspondence and notings on my instant Grievance as I shall be RTI-ing for it, if required, once the selections are concluded.