Sangai Express: Imphal: Monday, September 23, 2013.
A very discernible design behind the apparent
negligence and apathy.
There has to be a reason why the Government has
allowed the State Information Commission, SIC for short, to lie in a state of
comatose since September, 12, 2012.
Set up on June 15, 2005, in line with the Right to
Information Act passed by Parliament, the primary responsibility of the State
Information Commission was to furnish information to the public on any matters
pertaining to the functioning of the State Government Departments, barring the
Home Department.
Hailed as one of the landmark Acts passed by
Parliament, today, the RTI has been reduced to something of a joke, with the
State Government deliberately overlooking the fact that the SIC cannot function
effectively without a State Chief Information Commissioner.
Mr RK Angousana who was appointed the State Chief
Information Commissioner when the SIC was set up, retired on September 12, 2012.
On March 31 this year, the State
Information Commissioner, Ch Birendra followed suit and hung up his boots.
That the Government has not deemed it fit to fill
in the posts with fresh appointments tells many a story. It simply cannot be a
case of negligence, but a negligence or apathy with a design.
An Act passed to ensure transparency but today
reduced to something of a farce and the design behind the negligence to appoint
the needed officials becomes all too apparent.
This more than underlines the point that the State
Government sees the RTI, not as an Act to ensure transparency, but as something
of an irritant, an Act, which has the potential to expose many of its shady
deals. A sure shot way of telling the people to lay off. Come to think about it.
It is not only the State Information Commission
which has been given the quiet burial but also the Manipur Human Rights
Commission.
Top this off with the fact that other Commissions,
such as the Manipur State Commission for Women exists only on paper with no
meaningful work done at the ground level and it should not be too hard to
discern that Commissions are set up and discarded at the fancy and whims of the
State Government.
A case of too many skeletons lying inside the
closet of the Government. When the SIC was first set up following the
implementation of the RTI Act, a number of individuals took it upon themselves
to raise questions, especially pertaining to the financial dealings of
Government Departments.
There were cases galore of departments concerned
trying to side step the questions raised and take refuge in some legal jargons.
A tell tale sign that the RTI and the presence of
the SIC was beginning to rock numerous Government Departments, having the
potential to nail the officials concerned.
The State Government certainly seems to have
applied its minds on how to neutralise or deal with the irritants, read the RTI
Act through the SIC.
Let the posts of the State Chief Information
Commissioner lie vacant. Leave the post of the State Information Commissioner
vacant too.
It is the same tactics that has been followed in
the case of the Manipur Human Rights Commission too. For all practical
purposes, the MHRC is today a dead entity.
No prizes for guessing who injected that lethal
dose of medication and why. That an elected Government should be answerable to
the people is a given.
It is one of the most important premises on which
the philosophy and understanding of a democracy lies.
The Congress Government in Manipur has not exactly
put it in print that it does not believe in this premise, but in deliberately
rendering the SIC defunct, it has conveyed the message that it is not
answerable or is not ready to answer to the public, whenever any posers of
public interest are raised.
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