Anger among RTI activists as Punjab CIC walks out of venue

Law et al. News; Chandigarh; Lalit Kumar; 08.11.2010

The Punjab state level RTI function organized by the RTI Activists Federation of Punjab at Law Bhawan, Chandigarh on Sunday ended with slogans and demonstrations against the State Information Commission after RI Singh, Punjab CIC left the meeting in a huff.

A visibly upset Singh, usually known for his cool and calm approach, expressed his displeasure over the conduct of organisers as well as that of noted activist Arvind Kejriwal. Angered with Singh’s comment, those

gathered decided to demonstrate against him. A decision was also taken to convene an Executive Committee meeting soon for deciding the future course of action.

Trouble started during “public hearing” when criticism poured against the Information Commissioners. About 30 activists spoke of being dissatisfied over the attitude of Singh and PS Gill in particular, and other Information Commissioners in general. The situation went out of control when Kejriwal disclosed to the gathering that Singh has so far not imposed penalty against even a single Public Information Officer (PIO).

The participants were angry against the Commission for (i) not imposing penalties against PIOs when information was delayed; (ii) disposing and closing cases by giving a direction to the PIO for furnishing the information to the appellants; (iii) misbehaving with appellants; and (iv) acting in favour of PIOs even when the PIOs gave false and wrong information.

While Singh tried to pacify the crowd and gave assurance that he would take up these issues with his colleagues his non-commitment on the issue of “penalties” enraged the crowd. Singh also declined to give any assurance on “holding circuit sittings in district headquarters” by observing that “Commission had paucity of funds”.