Indian
Express: Hyderabad: Thursday, 23 April 2015.
Hitting back
hard at the lackadaisical attitude of the state bureaucracy that has turned a
blind eye towards the implementation of Right To Information Act, chief
information commissioner (CIC) Jannat Hussain and his state information
commissioners (SIC) met governor ESL Narasimhan on Wednesday at the Raj Bhavan
to brief him on the ongoing situation. SICs P Vijaya Babu, M Ratan, Varre
Venkateswarulu, Lam Thantiya Kumari, Vijaya Nirmala and S Imtiyaz Ahmed
accompanied Jannat Hussain.
The SICs of
Andhra Pradesh Information Commission, which falls in the schedule ten of the
AP Reorganisation Act, had previously lodged complaints with the governor and
AP chief secretary IYR Krishna Rao. They informed the governor about the
practice of “denigration and degradation”
of the Information Commissioners.
“There is a
directive from the Special chief secretary (GAD) Lingaraj Panigrahi to all
commissioners and district collectors of AP asking them to ignore the
blackmailing threats from SICs. He has cited the case of an age-old Blue Book
formula to say that commissioners were not equal to chief secretary in protocol,” Vijaya Babu said. According to him, the RTI
Act clearly states that all other Acts are overridden by it.
Under Section
16(5) of the RTI Act 2005, the status of
the State Information Commissioner shall be of that of a Chief Secretary. And
State Information Commissioner is required to take up hearings of the
complaints and appeals as per the provisions under Sections 18 and 19 of the
said Act and to impose penalties against the defaulting Public Information
Officers under Section 20 of the RTI Act 2005. An Information Commissioner is
also vested with Quasi Judicial powers while discharging duties.
According to
Vijaya Babu, the governor told them that
he was not aware of the said directive to all district collectors of Andhra
Pradesh. He said that the matter would be looked into. “We have repeatedly said
that a section of IAS officers do not want to come out of the colonial legacy
and respect the Act and judgments of the Information Commissioners. To uphold
the spirit of RTI Act, to prevent it from dilution and being turned into a
toothless body, the issue should be looked into without any further delay,”
Vijaya Babu added.