Moneylife:
Pune: Wednesday, October 24, 2012.
About 80% of
the Public Information Officers and First Appellate Authorities are ignorant of
their duties with citizens adding to the confusion reveals the annual report of
Maharashtra State Information Commission
Despite the
number of Right to Information (RTI) applications increasing over one lakh
since 2010, accounting to 6.5 lakh RTI applications in 2011 and despite 6.1
lakh RTI applications having been replied to, the Maharashtra State Information
Commission’s (SIC) annual report has hit hard at the abysmal knowledge and
performance by PIOs (Public Information Officers) and misuse by citizens of the
RTI Act.
Coming down
heavily on the PIOs and the FAAs (First Appellate Authorities), the SCIC annual
report, recently released; states that 80% of them are ignorant of their duties
under the RTI Act. Qualifying the reasons for
the pending appeals in the SIC, the report states: “unsatisfactory
performance by PIOs and FAAs and the trend of public authorities to
deliberately appoint junior officers as PIOs and FAAs, thus shrugging off their
responsibility of proper implementation of the RTI Act is very worrisome.”
The report
has also slammed public authorities for “poor record keeping” thanks to files
not being maintained as per norms set by the government. This it says has
resulted in delay in disseminating information or not providing information at
all, under RTI. The SCIC Report demands strict action against officers who do
not maintain documents as per the Maharashtra Public Records Act, 2005, and has
recommended police action against them. The SCIC, in its report, has urgently
directed all public authorities to: “preserve records in a proper manner
through classification of files as per official norms; in cases where documents
are not found (an excuse often given by PIOs to RTI applicants) the Maharashtra
Public Records Act 2005 should be implemented, a police complaint should be
registered against the officers and necessary action should be taken against
them.”
The report
adds that, “many PIOs/FAAs do not implement the CIC decisions and do not record
the reason for having not replied to the RTI applicant within the time frame or
delaying the decision in first appeal.”
Lauding the
Information Commissions for disposing off 16,211 second appeals from the total
22,339 appeals received, despite shortage of Information Commissioners. The
annual report though rues that only 65% of the staff appointments are filled
up, contributing to the sluggishness of the RTI movement in Maharashtra. It has
recommended that 81,369 PIOs, 54,327 APIOs and 23,161 FAAs are required for
full capacity working of RTI.
Mumbai, Pune
and Aurangabad lead in the number of second appeals received. Nearly Rs1.5
crore (Rs1,43,09,738 to be precise) had been the RTI application fee collection
for 2011. BPL beneficiaries who filed RTI applications amount to Rs13,959.
The SIC
report has not spared RTI applicants who flood RTI queries in large numbers in
Maharashtra. Some of the observations regarding citizens who invoke RTI are:
“too many issues are addressed in a single RTI application; a single individual
sometimes files too many RTI applications and misuse of BPL facility of free
information through improvisation.” This has resulted in RTI being
misrepresented and it has encouraged the corrupt officers gaining ground by
denying or dodging information, says SCIC.
Observing
that despite six years of RTI (the annual report is of 2011), the report
observes that: “citizens ask queries which are not related to RTI; instead of
seeking copies of documents, they expect action from the officers; one RTI
application sometimes ask for voluminous information from across the state
which becomes cumbersome for the PIO; asking for additional information in the
first and second appeal, which is over and above their original RTI
application; continuously seeking information on the same issue; not attaching
the mandatory court fee stamp along with the RTI application thus increasing
the work of the PIO.”
The SCIC
report also observed once again that poor implementation of pro-active
disclosures under Section 4 of the RTI Act and therefore it has made several
efforts to direct public authorities to suo motu upload information on their
respective websites. This would make citizens aware of the information of that
particular public authority and would drastically reduce the number of RTI
applications, filed by citizens. It has reminded government departments of the
Section 3 of the Maharashtra Public Records Act, 2005, which comes down heavily
on officers who do not maintain proper records or who give the excuse of
‘missing’ files.
RTI activist
and researcher Krishnaraj Rao states: “Public Information Officers sometime
falsely say that the file or document sought by you has been destroyed or
disposed of. However, they cannot support this statement with evidence. Now you
can use the Public Records Act & Rules to demand evidence or to expose
improper and unlawful disposal.”
He further
states: “Central Public Records Act, 1993, (Section 9) and Maharashtra Public
Records Act, 2005, (Sec 8) lay down strict terms & conditions, and
procedure to be followed before destroying any government document. Public
Records Rule No 9 (of both Centre & State) says that no public record shall
be destroyed without being recorded, reviewed and properly documented. Public
Records Act Sec 10 (Maharashtra Sec 9) states that improper destruction,
defacement, etc is punishable with five years’ imprisonment and Rs10,000 fine.
By demanding
details of the procedure by which this document or file was supposedly disposed
of, you can create pressure on government departments to disclose information.”
However, the
final question is, why don’t the Information Commissioners slam penalty on the
PIOs and ensure that the amount it recovered from them? And what can the SCIC
do to ensure that public authorities appoint PIOs and FAAs who are not too
junior? On the citizen’s side, can NGOs and RTI activists help in enlightening
RTI applicants on being focused in asking information?
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