Daily Pioneer: Bhubaneswar: Sunday,
March 05, 2017.
A five-member
delegation of the Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan (OSAA) on Friday met Odisha
Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Sunil Kumar Mishra and submitted a
memorandum to him urging him to initiate reformative measures in the RTI field
and also bring changes in functioning of the CIC.
The
delegation led by OSAA convenor Pradip Pradhan appraised the CIC about the
faulty Odisha RTI regime as regards RTI application form, illegal demand of
production of proof of citizenship which is in violation of Section 6 (2) of
the RTI Act, arbitrary introduction of appeal form and fee.
The
commission was requested to exercise its power under Section 25 (5) of the RTI
Act to direct the State Government to bring changes in the RTI rules and
withdraw the “illegal” provisions.
The CIC was
enlightened about the pendency of a huge 7,000 cases, slow disposal of cases by
the commission and lacuna in Odisha Information Commission (appeal procedure)
Rules, 2006 and long delay in sending copies of decisions of the cases.
The
delegation urged the CIC to take steps for hearing at least 30 cases per day
and disposing of 300 cases in a month by each commissioner, cancellation of
summer vacation and puja vacation, providing decision of the commission in Odia
language, hearing Section 4-related violation cases and hearing of cases
through videoconferencing.
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