The
Hans India: New Delhi: Tuesday, 01 March 2016.
Each and
every Information Commission is an independent quasi-judicial authority having
responsibility and power to get its orders implemented. As per Section 18, the
IC can summon the officer concerned, ask why the order is not implemented and
pass necessary orders. The complaint or second appeal will not end with mere
directions being passed or show cause notice issued. It can continue for
compliance also, in cases where IC finds it necessary. Compliance report has to
be filed by the PIO and if not complied, the applicant has to file complaint
for non-compliance which needs to be heard by the Commission.
If the
judgment or order of the court is not complied with, it will amount to civil
contempt of court for which penalty of imprisonment is also prescribed.
Scandalisation of courts or judges would amount to criminal contempt of court
as per Contempt of Court Act 1971. Either for courts or Information Commissions
getting their orders complied with is a complex issue.
The RTI Act
in itself does not contain any specific compliance provisions. The courts have
power to punish for Contempt of Court, whereas the Information Commission does
not have such powers. Some RTI activists demand contempt of court-type power to
the Commissions, while some others say such power is not necessary as it could
be misused.
Section 20 of
RTI Act says that: “the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public
Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause,
refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished
information within the time specified under Sub Section (1) of Section 7 or
malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect,
incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the
subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information,
it shall impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till
application is received or information is furnished,
so however,
the total amount of such penalty shall not exceed twenty five thousand rupees:
Provided that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public
Information Officer, as the case may be, shall be given a reasonable
opportunity of being heard before any penalty is imposed on him: Provided
further that the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently
shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public
Information Officer, as the case may be.”
Thus this
Section provides powers to punish with maximum penalty of Rs 25000 and
recommendation for disciplinary inquiry for seven kinds of information
‘wrongs’. Section 18 of RTI Act, deals with Powers and functions of Information
Commission, it says: “(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall be
the duty of the Central Information Commission or State Information Commission
as the case may be to receive and inquire into a complaint from any person,…..
(e ) who believes that he or she has been given incomplete, misleading or false
information under this Act;”
Obstructing
the delivery of information is punishable. Non compliance of the order to give
information is ‘such obstruction’. If the order of imposing penalty is not
implemented, what should happen? If incomplete
and misleading information is given, the IC can hear the complaint and inquire
into.
Recently on
January 14, 2016, the Delhi High Court in Power Finance Corporation Ltd. v.
Sushma Singh, Former CIC – WP (C) No. 5251 of 2014, directed the Registry of
the CIC for evolving a procedure for separate numbering of the non-compliance
petitions and placing them in separate file on disposal.
The CIC in
Radhika Arora v. CIC – CIC/WB/C/ 2008/00859, 862 & 863 by order dated
11-6-2009 decided as follows:
“…. Ms. Radhika Arora has raised important
issues on the question of record keeping in the Commission in file no.
CIC/WB/C/2008/00859: We have already decided in the Commission, in order to
follow up on compliance of decisions of the Commission, on non compliance of
which we had also received representations, decided that Secretary of the
Commission will now assume responsibility for ensuring compliance with all
decisions made by the Commission.
For this
purpose, a Register of Non Compliance will be opened, which will be processed
by the Office of Secretary, CIC, and on conclusion of the complaint, the
complaint will either be closed or registered as a complaint for hearing under
the appropriate sub sec. of Sec. 18(1) and proceeded upon by the Bench of the
Information Commissioner concerned.”
This decision
was approved in full court meeting of the CIC 2009 saying: “A presentation on
the web based work flow system regarding the complaints for non-compliance in
pursuance to the decision of the Commission in case no.CIC/WB/C/2008/ 00859,
00862 & 00863 was made. The presentation generated some discussion as to
whether the complaints for non compliance should be registered afresh or should
it be dealt in with the old file itself. It was decided finally to register the
cases of non-compliance and the web-base work flow system was approved”.
It was
reiterated in another full court meeting in 2014. It said: ............It was
decided that the directions in the case of Ms. RadhikaAroraVs. CIC should be
complied with and for that purpose, the Non-Compliance cases must be examined
in the concerned registries. In this regard, proposal for adequate resources
and suitable staff may be taken up with the DoPT. Such cases of Non-Compliance
will be registered by the Central Registry and will be allotted a file number
as suggested in the agenda note circulated in the meeting.
The
individual registries will send a monthly statement regarding disposal of
Non-Compliance cases separately to the Secretary through the Registrar for the
purpose of monitoring of such cases.” It was complained that ‘despite the above
decision of the CIC, duly approved in two Full Court Meetings, the
non-compliance petitions are either not taken cognisance of by the CIC or are
being summarily disposed of in violation of the principal of natural justice
without being registered and without issuing notice to the parties.
A writ
petition was filed challenging the order dated 15th May, 2014, passed by the
Chief Information Commissioner, seeking to "1. Order the PIO to provide me
the desired information praying to impose a monetary penalty under Section
20(1) and recommend for disciplinary action for repeated violation in three
cases under the service rules provided in Section 20(2) of the Right to Information
Act, 2005."
Information
sought originally was: copies of records maintained by the Commission while
dealing with non-compliance petition received from the public, show cause
notices issued to various authorities by the Commission, penalty imposed on by
the Commission, letters forwarded to other authorities and other related
information. In all, three RTI requests were filed. Later, complaints were
filed saying incomplete and misleading information was given.
Out of two
complaints, hearing for one was scheduled. Justice Manmohan of Delhi High Court
held in Power Finance Corporation Ltd. Vs Sushma Singh & Ors. on 14
January, 2016, W.P.(C) 5251/2014 & CM APPL. 10427/2014, (http://indiankanoon.org/doc/196619367/) that
there has been violation of principles of natural justice, set aside the order
of CIC and matter was remanded back to CIC. Registry of the Central Information
Commission was directed to evolve a procedure by virtue of which applications
for non-compliance of CIC orders are numbered and different applications are
placed in separate files so that this sort of confusion does not arise in
future.
Each and
every Information Commission is an independent quasi-judicial authority having
responsibility and power to get its orders implemented. As per Section 18, the
IC can summon the officer concerned, ask why the order is not implemented and
pass necessary orders. The complaint or second appeal will not end with mere
directions being passed or show cause notice issued.
It can
continue for compliance also, in cases where IC finds it necessary. Compliance
report has to be filed by the PIO and if not complied, the applicant has to
file complaint for non-compliance which needs to be heard by the Commission.
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