Times of India: New Delhi:
Tuesday, June 11, 2013.
TIMES
VIEW:
Indian
Railways is one of the biggest employers in the world, not just in the country.
Its employees also happen to be public servants, which is why our top watchdog
has ruled that their service details fall within the Right to Information Act's
remit. Specifically, the central information commissioner has granted a
dissatisfied traveller access to his ticket examiner`s service book. Generally,
it has reiterated that service details of public servants available in service
books cannot be treated as personal information. This ruling is at one with the
spirit of RTI which, at its core, compels officials to discharge their duties.
Former
central information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah astutely noted that since
the structure of our bureaucratic system was designed to feed an Empire, since
it wasn't designed to service a democracy, its officers have been taught that
information was to be held in trust for the government. In other words, not
giving it away was actually part of their job! This explains why it`s the
bureaucracy that has been putting up some of the biggest hurdles to RTI Act
ever since this legislation was proposed. If it had had its way, the
government's file notings would have remained privileged, on the grounds that
bureaucrats would otherwise become more interested in covering their backs than
doing their jobs. But the logic that quite properly triumphed there applies
here as well the grounds on which decisions about how to spend taxpayers` money
or evaluate public servants are taken are in public interest.
Before RTI,
ordinary citizens had no access to records of decisions that shaped their
lives. After RTI, not only has thefortress of officialese been thrown open,
this has helped expose many cases of corruption from the Commonwealth Games to the
2G scam. From here on, it`s the babus that will keep losing ground.
COUNTERVIEW
; Some rights are not entitlements.
Chandan
Nandy:
As a matter
of democratic right, the Right to Information Act allows people to inquire and
probe what their elected government is up to. But it cannot be citizens'
privilege to examine the service book of government employees, including senior
bureaucrats and officers holding sensitive posts. The decision by one of three
central information commissioners to allow a petitioner to have access to the
service book of a government servant, in this case a lowly railway ticket
examiner, is a misplaced notion of freedom and right.
The rules
governing the functions of government servants and the bureaucracy as a whole
have stood the test of time. The regulations are quite elaborate and
multi-layered with enough checks and balances. An errant employee, regardless
of his seniority, could face a departmental inquiry, suspension from service,
denial of promotion or other forms of punishment, including penal action. State
and central level administrative tribunals also adjudicate over service-related
matters or issue rulings over grievances brought before them by individual
officers against colleagues. It would be a travesty of the administrative
regulations to put a government employee's annual confidential reports and the
progress of his career, that constitute his service book, in the public domain.
To allow the
public to pore through employees' service books will open the floodgates of
score-settling or pointless naming and shaming by one member of the bureaucracy
against another. Besides, officers will not be able to function without fear or
favour while discharging their duties. The CIC ruling will push them to take
populist rather than hard and realistic decisions. Since the practical effect
of the ruling would be pernicious, sweeping examination of officials' 'report
cards' should be left to the better judgment of their bosses. The CIC would do
well to issue rulings making files, not service books, public.
.JPG)
.JPG)
