Times of India: Shimla: Tuesday,
April 12, 2016.
At a time
when BJP is launching constant attack on Congress government in Himachal
Pradesh for causing huge loss to state exchequer by appointing defeated
Congress candidates as chairmen and vice-chairmen of different boards and
corporations, now in a recent judgement HP State Chief Information
Commissioner, who is now retired, has directed state government to ensure
proactive disclosure of the details of appointment of all the chairmen and vice
chairmen, including their terms and conditions, under section 4 of the RTI Act
2005. It further directed that this information should be uploaded on the
government website to enable the citizens to have the needed information.
As majority
of public sector undertakings (PSUs) in Himachal Pradesh are running into
losses, BJP is questioning the appointment of chairmen and vice-chairmen into
such PSUs as they are not only being provided perks and allowances but also
vehicles and other benefits.
RTI Activist
Dev Ashish Bhattacharya had filed an appeal before State Information Commission
stating that there were 30 chairmen and vice-chairmen appointed by Himachal
Pradesh government. He had alleged that government had not appointed complete
information about these chairmen and vice-chairmen as sought by him under RTI.
While hearing
the appeal the then Chief Information Commissioner Bhim Sen in his March 11
order said that information sought should be provided to the appellant.
Bhattacharya
said that he was earlier provided incomplete information on such political
appointments. He said on filing the second appeal the Information Commission
has directed the General Administration Department (GAD) to collect the
information from the appropriate branches and provide the same to him.
He said
during the course of hearing, GAD had informed the Commission that the
information sought is not compiled at the government level in respect of the
appointment all the chairmen and vice-chairmen and therefore on receipt of the
RTI application as per orders of the Commission the information was collected
from the concerned departments and provided to the appellant.
He said that
GAD had provided him the incomplete information as on going through the same he
found that the GAD did not provide the complete information. "On informing
the Chief Information Commissioner this order was issued. GAD was further
directed to collect the complete information and provide the same to him, he
added.
"But the
important question of rule is that a huge amount of public money is spent on
these political appointees by virtue of their salaries, perks and office
expenses. Why the GAD or Finance department should not maintain the details at
one place for monitoring purposes," Bhattacharya added.
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