Daily Excelsior: Srinagar: Monday, January 22, 2018.
Recently the
State Information Commissioner in one of his orders said that Right to
Information Act (RTI) can’t be used to settle personal scores or to seek
redressal of grievance or settling service matter. The State Information
Commissioner issued this order while hearing a 2nd appeal filed by a retired
employee of Power Development Department before the State Information
Commission (SIC). Some local dailies even carried news reports on this issue.
As a campaigner and advocate of Right to Information Act (RTI), I feel this order needs to be revisited as it may leave very
serious imprints. In future many Government
officials may quote this order and seek undue relief by not revealing
genuine information to aggrieved.
Background of
Case :
A retired
employee of Power Development Department (PDD) namely Mukhtar Ahmad Tanki
sought intervention of State Information Commission (SIC) when he was not
satisfied with the orders of the Public Information Officer (PIO) and First
Appellate Authority (FAA) of the PDD. Tanki filed second appeal before the
State Information Commission (SIC) on 26th October 2017. The appeal was mooted
against the office of Chief Engineer Electric Maintenance & Rural
Engineering wing Kashmir (EM&RE). The retired employee alleged that the PIO
of the Chief Engineer’s office provided him incomplete information vide his
official letter No. ED-II/1338-39 2 dated 15-06-2017. Being aggrieved with the reply of PIO, Mukhtar
Ahmad Tanki filed first appeal before the Chief Engineer who is also the First Appellate Authority (FAA) on
15-07-2017. The FAA (Chief Engineer EM&RE) vide letter No.
CE/M&RE/Adm-I/RTI/PF/9970-74/AS dated 01-08-2017 asked the PIO to go
through the contents of the RTI application and provide the remaining
information to the retired official. The PIO provided the remaining information
to him on one more point, but the information seeker was not satisfied at all.
Finally he knocked the doors of State Information Commission (SIC) by filing
2nd appeal with the request to direct the PIO of Chief Engineer EM&RE
office to provide him complete information as sought under RTI Act…..
Information
sought ?
Information
seeker Mukhtar Ahmad Tanki vide his RTI
application dated 18th May 2017 sought information on four points from the PIO
of Chief Engineer EM&RE Kashmir. The information sought pertained to the
benefits of SRO 59 to the employees of Power Development Department. The PIO
according to information seeker provided incomplete information and information
seeker filed an appeal before the Chief Engineer EM&RE Kashmir who is also
the First Appellate Authority (FAA) under J&K RTI Act 2009. After filing of
the first appeal, the PIO responded his RTI application vide letter dated
15-05- 2017 providing part of the information. Again the information seeker was
not satisfied with the information provided. He subsequently filed second
appeal before the State Information Commission (SIC). When the 2nd appeal was admitted before SIC,
the PIO submitted his counter reply before SIC vide his letter No. ED-II/3997-
4003 dated 13-11-2017. PIO in his reply told the Commission that the information sought by
Information seeker has been provided to him.
The appeal came up for hearing once again on 29th Dec 2017. Irshad Ahmad
Sofi, PIO in the office of Chief Engineer, Bashir Ahmad Dar, AEE/PIO Electric
Division-II and appellant Mukhtar Ahmad Tanki, attended the hearing. During
proceedings, the PIO submitted that complete information has been provided to
the appellant. The appellant admitted to have received the information. He,
however, submitted that the Chief Engineer, EM&RE Wing, Kashmir has
withdrawn the benefit of SRO 59 in his case after his retirement from the
service and the reasons for this were not being revealed.
SIC’s final
order:
While deciding
this case the State Information Commissioner Mohammad Ashraf Mir issued
following orders:
“The
appellant actually has a grievance against the Department that he has been
denied the benefit of SRO 59. This is a service matter and can be agitated by
the appellant at the appropriate forum. Service disputes cannot be settled
through the medium of RTI Act. The provisions of the Right to Information Act
cannot be used to settle personal scores or to seek redressal of grievances or
for settling service disputes. The information sought by the appellant through
his RTI application has been provided to him by the PIO. For settling his
service dispute, the appellant should approach the appropriate authority. The
2nd appeal is accordingly disposed of ”
Conclusion :
I believe
Mukhtar Ahmad Tanki a retired employee of Power Development Department (PDD)
has some genuine service matter wherein Chief Engineer EM&RE Kashmir hasn’t
allegedly addressed the same. If he invokes Right to Information (RTI) for
getting his grievance addressed by seeking an answer from the Chief Engineers
office, I don’t think there is any harm in this . I know many individual cases
wherein people invoked RTI to get genuine individual benefits. When a citizen
living under Below Poverty Line (BPL) was not enlisted in a rural housing
scheme (Indira Awaas Yojna now called PMs AwaasYojna) several years back
in Kutbal village of Budgam, he invoked
RTI Act and got justice after some months. Similarly many individuals got
entitlement for old age pension using RTI.
A doctor
who failed in MD theory exam was
declared to have qualified the same after he underwent inspection of his answer paper in 2012 at
SKIMS invoking section 2 (i) of J&K RTI Act 2009. If a retired employee is
denied justice and he invokes RTI which is his or her only weapon, I don’t
think State Information Commission (SIC) should have any objection. SIC has to
decide appeals within the ambit of J&K RTI Act 2009 , if the information is
worth revealing I feel SIC should not
tell an information seeker that RTI should not be used to settle service
disputes. I can quote several examples wherein Government employees got justice
after invoking RTI Act. If SIC finds that RTI is used to harass or
creating pressure on Govt officers , the
information seeker can be reprimanded, but
if someone is trying to get his service matter addressed why shall he be
denied this right ?