CIC’s RTI order invites activists' ire

Priya Yadav, TNN, Dec 14, 2010,

CHANDIGARH: In an RTI order, which activists protest will give wrong signal to the already sluggish bureaucracy, the Chief Information Commissioner, Punjab has held that penalty will be imposed on a government officer for delay or denial of information within stipulated time if it is first established that such delay or denial was without reasonable cause.

However, Arvind Kejriwal, an eminent RTI activist heading Parivartan, a Delhi-based citizens' movement, said the Act mandates the CIC to give a speaking order on the causes of delay in each and every case.

Quoting facts from his recent exhaustive survey on the performance of information commissions across the country, Kejriwal said, " In Punjab, 448 cases were disposed of by the Commission in 2009-10. Not a single penalty order was issued against any bureaucrat. Shockingly, the statutory duty of CIC to ask why there was a delay and give a speaking order whether the cause for delay was reasonable, was performed by Punjab's CIC in just 10 out of 448 cases. This is clear violation of the RTI Act that the CIC neither issues show cause notice nor the speaking order."

"The message that Punjab's CIC is giving to its bureaucrats is that they don't have to worry for giving information under RTI. This judgment is an attempt to deviate from the core issue and quite irrelevant,'' said Arvind speaking to TOI from Delhi.

His reaction came in the wake of a judgment running into 10 pages, in which CIC, RI Singh said while the right to information and the time scheduled fixed under the Act for furnishing information are binding, it is not necessary that every delay should be visited with penalty.

"Penalty is a contingent consequence, conditional to conclusive finding of causes of the delay. To blindly impose penalty would only blind the Information Commissions and these are not kangaroo courts but tribunals of rule of law,'' Singh observed in the judgment passed on Monday.

Singh gave his observations in a case filed by Hardev Singh Arshi, a former MLA against a district welfare officer for seeking information regarding Ashirwad (Shagun) scheme. The CIC held that the PIO has given an explanation of the delay, which was reasonable and so it is not a fit case warranting imposition of penalty.

In the case of Arshi, the PIO took the plea that he was short of staff and manpower and could not provide information on time.