Moneylife: Pune: Saturday, May 13, 2017.
The prime
objective of the Right to Information (RTI) Act is to bring in transparency and
thereby root out corruption. However, the Maharashtra State Information
Commission office at Nashik has the dubious distinction of its desk officer
seeking a bribe of Rs15,000 to dispose of an appeal in favour of the appellant,
with an assurance that there would be no penalty against her school.
The
complainant in this case was a headmistress of a school in Dhule who was
slapped with a Rs25,000 penalty by the Nashik Information Commissioner for not
providing information under RTI, in a 2015 case. Ravindra S Sonar, the Desk
Officer at the Commission, demanded a bribe of Rs15,000 from the headmistress
to settle the issue by disposing of the appeal in her favour and not levying
the penalty. Finally, he agreed for Rs10,000. The headmistress approached the
Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). ACB officers laid a trap on 7 May 2017 at the
entrance of the Nashik Information Commission office, where the headmistress
would hand over the bribe to Sonar. Sonar was arrested by the police while
accepting the bribe.
While RTI
activists across Maharashtra are agitated over the issue, no stern action
against Sonar has been taken and he continues to be the Desk Officer at the
Nashik Information Commission. RTI activists feel that the very arm of
transparency and the last hope of citizens is under threat, as this case could
be just the beginning.
Vijay
Kumbhar, a leading RTI activist from Pune, says, “Inaction by the State
government in not taking stern action immediately after ACB nabbed Sonar,
highlights the double standard of the Chief Minister, as his rhetoric time and
again to weed out corruption comes a cropper by this inaction. Also, the state
government has never been serious about providing good quality staff to information
commissions – generally deadwood are posted here. Similarly, several retired
bureaucrats with tainted records have adorned the role of Information
Commissioners. So, how can one expect a corruption-free information
commission?”
Indeed, this
incident is a blot on the reputation of information commissions.
Another
leading RTI activist, Major General Sudhir Jatar (retd), feels that this must
be happening in many cases, where Information Commissioners do not fine
defaulters.
Mumbai based
RTI Activist Afzal Mohammed rues, “It is indeed a sorry state of affairs that
an esteemed institution like the Information Commission, which is supposed to
deliver truth to the common man, gets trapped in this fashion. I personally
believe there are a few rotten eggs in all baskets, but we cannot generalise.”
According to
Karnataka-based RTI activist N Vikram Simha, this incident is unfortunate but
it is believed it happens also in the Karnataka Information Commission. “It is
unfortunate that Maharashtra, which is a leading state in pioneering RTI,
should be so tainted,” he says.
RTI activist
Manoj Pai says, “Most offices of Information Commissioners do not have any
sanctioned staff. The Commission has to make do with staff from other
departments on deputation. It is believed that all such Information Commission
offices, across the country, are a kind of dumping ground for unwanted or
inefficient staff. Some staff get themselves posted there to escape punishment
for pending cases against them in their parent department. The list is long.
Unless improvement is done in the quality of staff in the information
commissions, this sorry state of affairs will continue.”
Section 15
(6) of the RTI Act, which deals with State Commissions, states:
“The State
Government shall provide the State Chief Information Commissioner and the State
Information Commissioners with such officers and employees as may be necessary
for the efficient performance of their functions under this Act, and the
salaries and allowances payable to and the terms and conditions of service of
the officers and other employees appointed for the purpose of this Act shall be
such as may be prescribed.”
However, this
is time and again violated.
So, besides
the huge list of pending appeals, corruption now is another factor that is
denying the common man his right to seek information.
Bhaskar
Prabhu, Convener, Mahiti Adhikar Manch, has called for an investigation by all
commissioners on such practices. He says "The recent incident of a desk
clerk of the Nasik bench of SIC accepting a bribe to reduce the penalty is very
deplorable. It calls for an Investigation by all Commissioners about the
practices being followed in their offices as to how desk officers can waive or
reduce penalties, as this will put into question the credibility of the orders
passed and also raise doubts about the possible involvement of the IC in such
arrangements. This also raises the issue of non-compliance of orders in cases
where penalties are imposed. As there is no serious follow up, there are cases
where the PIO has retired without the recovery of the penalty and the enquiries
thereafter are just manipulated.''
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