Moneylife: Monday, March 26, 2012.
Maharashtra CM dilly-dallies on filling up key state information commission posts. In a reply to Central Information Commissioner’s letter to the state CM, the latter replied that “he would keep the matter in his mind”, and it still remains there without any action.
Key posts in the Maharashtra information commission have not been filled by the state government even though there were around 22,000 pending Right to Information (RTI) as of November 2011, according to Shailesh Gandhi, India’s Central Information Commissioner. He further adds that if citizens and activists in the state are not all alert and voice their protest against this callous attitude of the Maharashtra, the RTI Act will die a natural death in the state, with other states following Maharashtra’s lead in killing the RTI Act.
Mr Gandhi had pointed this out in his letter in November last year to the state chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to take up the mater urgently as without key officers at the helm of the state information commission, RTI applications in the state may not be even looked into. The CM had replied that “he would keep the matter in mind”. But months have gone and the matter still remains in the Mr Chavan’s mind.
Here is the letter...
12 November 2011
Shri Prithviraj Chavan,
Chief Minister,
Government of Maharashtra
Hon’ble Shri Chavan,
I am writing this letter to you, to draw your attention to a serious problem facing the implementation of RTI in Maharashtra. Presently, there are no Information Commissioners for Mumbai and Konkan. The pendency is mounting and if urgent steps are not taken, RTI will suffer a grievous blow, from which it may not be able to recover. I understand that most cases are taking around a year to be decided. By inaction and allowing pendencies to mount, RTI could become dysfunctional and the aam admi in whose name we undertake most activities will stop using this important tool. I am aware of your personal commitment to transparency and RTI, and urge you to please ensure that information commissioners for Mumbai and Konkan are appointed urgently through a transparent process.
It would be a good idea to publish a proposed process and get public reactions and suggestions before finalizing it. It is necessary that the process of selection of information commissioners should be made accountable and transparent. I am briefly outlining what such a process could be:
- The government should advertise its intention to appoint a certain number of information commissioners. Eminent people could be apply or be nominated by others.
- A search committee perhaps consisting of the Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha, chief information commissioner, vice chancellor of some universities, and RTI activists could be formed to shortlist a panel which could be three times the number of commissioners to be selected. These could be announced with the minutes of the meeting at which the short-listing was done.
- A public hearing could be held to give citizens and groups the opportunity to voice their support or opposition to the candidates. Based on these inputs, the final decision to select the Commissioners could be taken by the committee as set out in Section 15 (3) of the RTI Act.
Various commissions are the checks and balances of our democracy. If appropriate people are appointed, these important institutions would help in delivering democracy to citizens. It may be prudent to select most commissioners who are below 60 years in age. It is also necessary that Commissioners deliver adequate number of decisions and are accountable to people. Information commissioners are not delivering at an adequate pace to meet the requirement. Whereas it is possible to adjudicate 5000 cases in a year as I have demonstrated most commissioners are adjudicating less than 50% of this. Those appointed as information commissioners must undertake to deliver an account of their job to the citizens.
Hoping for a positive response, and thanking you in anticipation,
Yours truly
Shailesh Gandhi
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