Indian Express: New Delhi: Wednesday, March 13, 2013.
With the
Union cabinet having approved the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of
Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011 (hereafter
referred to as the GR bill), Parliament has an opportunity to enact a law that
would give citizens a way in which to hold government functionaries
accountable. An effective GR act has the potential to transform the
relationship between an ordinary Indian and the bureaucracy. It builds on the
transparency regime of the RTI by encouraging citizens to use information to
enforce accountability.
We have no shortage of innovations in law, but
our constant refrain is that we are unable to implement them. Beginning with
the RTI Act, 2005, India has enacted a slew of rights-based legislations:
NREGA, the Forest Rights Act and the RTE Act. In many states, there are public
service guarantee acts that convert the delivery of every notified public
service into an entitlement. The only law that has some effective redress
mechanism built into it is the RTI, and we must learn lessons from it. The GR
bill should provide every person the right to make a complaint and create an
architecture for them to receive a time-bound written reply. Failure to do so
should, like the RTI law, attract a penalty to be paid from the concerned
officer’s pocket. What makes this bill an important complement to the public
service delivery bills of the states is its potential to hold both the
implementing functionary and the supervisory structure accountable. Indeed,
this bill seeks to make the supervisory superstructure the linchpin for the
redress of grievances, by holding supervisors (grievance redress officers)
accountable for not sorting out people’s complaints. Supervisors in our
bureaucracy are there to ensure delivery, but have completely escaped real
accountability. Like the PIO in the RTI Act, the GRO here should be made
accountable to the people.
The lack of
an effective mechanism to deal with everyday grievances characterises the
functioning of almost all government departments. The basic mechanisms to
engage with the system have not been put in place: an acknowledgement of the
petition or complaint mandated through a dated receipt; a participatory process
of inquiry; a time-bound reasoned reply through a “speaking order”; and an
independent appellate authority at the district or sub-district level who can
impose penalties and award compensation for non-compliance.
The
introduction of the bill in Parliament in December 2011 was a welcome step in
trying to create this architecture. However, the bill had several lacunae that
needed to be addressed. It was referred to the parliamentary standing
committee, which made several useful recommendations in its report to
Parliament in August 2012. The bill has now been approved by the cabinet. Some
critical provisions must be included in any GR legislation to ensure that the
mechanism has the institutional capacity to effectively receive, inquire into
and redress any complaints relating to deficiencies in the functioning of
government.
First, the
legislation must mandate each public authority to develop a citizens’ charter
enumerating all the services, goods and obligations of the public authority
along with relevant timelines, norms and standards. All the obligations of the
public authority under any law, policy, programme, order or scheme, should be
comprehensively stated in the charter. The charter must be developed in a
participatory manner and must be periodically updated. The obligations of
proactive disclosure under Section 4 of the RTI Act should be used as a means
to build the larger ecosystem of responsibilities by enumerating the job chart
of each functionary so that responsibility can be fixed. Any violation of the
obligations as outlined through proactive disclosure, the citizens’ charter or
job charts should constitute a grievance under the law.
Second, in a
country like India, it is critical that the GR law provide a decentralised
system for receiving and dealing with complaints close to people’s place of
residence. Every public authority/ office should have a supervisor designated
as the GRO at the panchayat and municipal ward levels to receive and dispose of
complaints in a specified timeframe. This mechanism is invoked after the
failure of a system to perform its regular function. The GRO should have
adequate authority to ensure that the deficiency is redressed in a reasonable
timeframe and responsibility is fixed. If the GRO does not redress the
grievance within 15 days, the complaint should automatically be escalated to
the head of the department (HoD) at the district level, while making the GRO
responsible for not carrying out the obligations of the act.
Third, there
are millions of people who are denied their basic entitlements but find it difficult
to make a complaint. Many are ill-equipped to draft a written application, and
do not find themselves empowered enough to walk into a department and file a
complaint against an official of the same department. In order to facilitate
registration, follow-up and tracking of grievances, the legislation must
provide for single-window information and facilitation centres at the most
decentralised level in rural and urban areas. Grievances could be received in
multiple ways and for each complaint, a dated receipt must be issued. The bill
must provide for a right to a time-bound open hearing for individual and
collective complaints, preferably on a designated day, to facilitate peoples’
participation in the hearing. These are not just theoretical ideas some have
been put to use with great success in the context of Rajasthan’s Right to
Hearing Act.
Fourth, it is
essential that the bill provide for an independent authority at the district
level with powers to penalise HoDs, GROs and other erring officials and also
order compensation to the complainant. This is something that the DoPT has
already promised to incorporate in the law through a press note issued soon
after the bill was introduced in Parliament. Appeals against the decision of
the district-level designated authority must lie with the state/ Central GR
commission. If the penalty and compensation provisions are not strong, the bill
will be rendered ineffective. The commissions should also have powers to give
directions, where appropriate, about systemic changes that may have to be made
to prevent the recurrence of grievances.
It would be a
shame if this bill is sacrificed at the altar of federalism. Many grievances
that affect the common person are in state government agencies and departments.
It would be meaningless to create a GR mechanism that leaves out the majority
of Indians, especially those most in need of its intervention. This legislation
will serve as a complement to the public service delivery acts passed by the
states. The Concurrent List of the Constitution authorises both the Centre and
the states to legislate on “actionable wrongs”, which is essentially what
grievances are. The concerns of those worried about Central interference in
state policy could be addressed by making sure that the state commissions are,
as in the RTI Act, appointed at the state level and not subordinate to Central
commissions. Appeals against the orders of state commissions could go to the
high courts. Also, disciplinary action could be a parallel process available
exclusively to the department and the state government.
If the bulk
of the funding for this legislation comes from the Central government, every
Indian could have access to a real platform for democratic accountability
without interfering in the domain of the state governments. Just 1 per cent of
the expenditure on flagship programmes could help fund the entire framework.
Imagine the loss to India and our citizens had the national RTI Act not applied
to the states as well. RTI 2.0 must give all Indians a chance not just to seek
answers, but make officials accountable to the people. An effective grievance
redress legislation would significantly reduce arbitrariness and corruption and
give people better access to their entitlements.
Nikhil
Dey and Anjali Bhardwaj are co-convenors of the National Campaign for People’s
Right to Information
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