RTI activists: Info panel passing orders without hearing

Jeeva, TNN, Feb 24, 2011,

CHENNAI: G Balaji, a right to information (RTI) activist in Tirumangalam, wonders when the Tamil Nadu Information Commission gave directions on his seven appeals without an ultimatum to the respective public information officers to comply with the directions.

Last year, Balaji filed applications with seven departments, including the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, the Coimbatore collectorate, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and the Mettupalayam municipality, seeking information on various subjects. Most didn't respond even after he moved the first appeallate authority in the respective departments. Some of the PIOs furnished information but it was incomplete, he said.

Balaji then approached the commission hoping the PIOs would be summoned and heard for their violations of RTI law before being directed to provide the information within a specified time limit.

"The commission did not conduct any inquiry but gave directions to the PIOs to provide information without any deadline. And two months after the orders were passed, none of them has furnished the information,'' said Balaji.

Many RTI appellants say a lot of orders are being passed without conducting hearing and the commission is also not specifying a time limit for the PIOs to comply with the directions. A lot of such orders, they say, remain on paper.

"The commission has the power to require the public authority to take necessary steps to secure compliance with the provisions of the Act. But a direction without an ultimatum for compliance will be incomplete. While several PIOs don't respond to RTI queries even after the commission's final orders, the absence of a time limit for compliance will only embolden them to continue to violate the law,'' said M Sivaraj, an RTI campaigner in Vellore.

Sources in the information commission said almost all the directions had a specific time limit for the PIOs concerned. "This might have happened in cases where the applicant approached us without exhausting the facility of first appeal that can be filed to the appellate authority in the department where the application was filed,'' they said.

On directions being given without hearing, the sources said it was practically not possible to conduct hearing in every case.

"We get about 200 appeals a day and we have only three commissioners, headed by the chief information commissioner. Hence, it was not possible to conduct hearings for all the appeals,'' said a senior official in the commission.