The
Times of India: Lucknow: Monday, October 29, 2012.
Former
Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi does not agree with the recent
Supreme Court judgment making it necessary for Chief Information Commissioners
to have a judicial background and to conduct all hearings in benches consisting
of two Commissioners one of whom will have to be a person from judicial
background.
Addressing a
meeting of RTI activists organized by Campaign for Right to Information, UP,
and Lok Soochnadhikar Manch, Gandhi put up a spirited argument why a person of
judicial background was not necessary for the Information Commission. "The
task merely involved either taking a decision of either allowing information to
be given or not. Some judicial thinking may be required to consider the cases
of exemption from the Act. But such cases are rare. In the 20,000 cases that he
disposed of, only two required some legal interpretation.
Gandhi
questioned when IAS officers, without any legal background can perform
quasi-judicial role, why can't the Information Commissioners? He said that it
was wrong for the Supreme Court to say that 75% of officers were now spending
75% of their time in providing information. According to his calculations 4.6 %
of officers were spending less than 4.6% of their time on RTI. He said that the
same Supreme Court was in favour of the right to information before the Act was
made but the recent judgment will weaken the law.
Gandhi said
that in his view some members of judiciary does not want RTI to apply on
judiciary. He gave an example of a Sureme Court Judge who was found under RTI
to have travelled to Australia via Chicago. "It is probably such things
which a few judges are finding 'vexatious' and which the prime minister thinks
is 'private information'," he said.
Justice
(retired) Pradeep Kant of the High Court advised caution. He said whereas he
was definitely not in favour of anything which would weaken the Act or would
protect the wrongdoers he would like decisions to be taken only within the
framework of law.
Former legal
advisor to governor, Chandra Bhushan Pandey said only people with an activist
bent of mind should be appointed Information Commissioners and further commented
that people were being made Information Commissioners not on the basis of their
merit but because of political connections.
Former State
Information Commissioner Gyanendra Sharma and activist Naveen Tewari also spoke
at the meeting.
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