IMPORTANT STORIES ON RTI AT ONE PLACE

[Mahendra Kumar Gupta]

YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW

TOi, 17.1.2011. (Pg 14)

Crucial RTI boost lifted Adarsh case

 

Viju B | TNN

 

Mumbai: The Right to Information (RTI) Act and activists who pursued the Adarsh case as early as 2008 are emerging victorious in the battle over the cooperative housing society. The RTI Act was instrumental in not only revealing the names of the 103 approved members of the controversial society, but also in bringing to light the links between politicians and various officials, including those in the government, military and defence estates office.
   The five-year-old sunshine act is the unsung hero in the story of a building that was originally meant for members of the armed forces and their relatives, but ended up having several bureaucrats, politicians and their kin or acquaintances.
   “This is one scam where you have them all under one roof. More than the size of the scam, this fraud is symbolic of a rotten system in which the powers-that-be get together to usurp public land in a brazen manner, violating all norms, said Simpreet Singh member of National Alliance of the Peoples Movement (NAPM), which filed 10 RTI queries on this issue. NAPM filed an official complaint in 2008 with the state environment department and a PIL in the Bombay High Court in March 2010. Singh said the RTI queries were filed with the district collectorate, state urban development department, environment department and other public offices.
   “The RTI queries showed which politicians and bureaucrats were involved in giving various approvals for the project. We mainly found that a project in a Coastal Regulation Zone had not received any environmental clearances, Singh said.
   Juhu-based activist Yogacharya Anandji compiled almost 300 pages of documents on the Adarsh case. These include a list of allottees, CRZ violations and the role of the M u m b a i Metropolitan Region D eve l o p - ment Aut h o r i t y (MMRDA). Anandji sent RTI queries to agencies like the civic corporation, MMRDA and registrar of cooperative societies. He said that in the case of the MMRDA he was stalled and had to go right up to the state information commissioner to get the details.
   Anandji filed 14 RTIs on the issue, including seven just to procure the list of allottees. RTI replies showed that the initial list of allottees gradually swelled from 31 to 103, and the buildings height grew to over 100 metres, as the years passed.
   “RTI replies showed that an official in the urban development department misled state agencies into believing that the environmental clearance had been received from the Centre, whereas the Centre had asked the state to look into the situation. RTI replies also showed that allottees had shown lesser incomes, Anandji said.

Navy, Army happy with order    

The navy and army are happy with Jairam Ramesh’s order to demolish the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society (ACHS), which overlooks vital defence installations. Western naval command chief Sanjeev Bhasin said he would have been happier if MoEF had acquired the building and handed it over to the defence for accommodation of married officers. CBI action against irregularities in ACHS had been exposed after Bhasin sent a note to the Centre. The navy had been objecting as the society overlooked several vital installations. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa units of the army, led by Lt-Gen Sanjay Chopra, had objected to the society and given documents from 1796 to the CBI to prove that the Adarsh plot was its land and was passed off to the society as revenue land. TNN

Officials delay nursery admissions info, fined

Manash Pratim Gohain TNN

New Delhi: The Central Information Commission (CIC) recently fined two PIOs of the Directorate of Education (DoE) for delay in providing information under Right to Education Act 2005 about nursery admission. Not only that, the CIC also said that the education minister’s assurances about monitoring the same and punishing violators have not fructified.
    Last week, this paper had reported on how the DoE went soft on those violating criteria laid down for nursery admissions last year. In the first case, former deputy education officer (DEO) of Zone-XIII, Virender Kumar, was found fined Rs 14,000. Likewise, information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi found Anil Kumar, deemed PIO and DEO (Zone-XIII), guilty and fined him Rs 9,500.
    Taking cognizance of the appeal filed by RTI activist Mohit Goel, a resident of Model Town, the CIC observed that since no reasonable cause for delay in providing information was found, it was a fit case for imposing penalty on the officers. Goel has been seeking information on action taken on four schools based on nine complaints lodged with the DoE during nursery admissions in 2009-2010.
    Goel filed a separate RTI with the DoE headquarters in June 2010 to know the action taken on education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely’s statement in January 2010 regarding nursery admission. The minister had told the media that he had asked DoE to give a status report about schools violating nursery admission criteria. DoE did not provide any information despite the CIC instructing DoE in October 2010 to furnish the information by October 15, 2010.
    “When I received no information even after October 15, I approached CIC, and in its hearing on January 4, 2011, CIC asked DoE to furnish information by January 20, 2011,” said Goel. In his order, Gandhi observed: “The appellant asked for information about pre-school admission. He states that the education minister had made certain commitments about monitoring these admissions and taking suitable action whenever schools were not adhering to the government’s policy. He had filed the RTI application with the Directorate of Education (HQ). It appears from the response of DOE (HQ) that the announcement of the education minister has not actually been implemented. Citizens expect statements by ministers to be followed by the departments. Hence, the appellant was correct in seeking this information.”
RTI HELPLINE WINS AWARD

Launched In 2006, It Has Been Aiding Thousands Fight For Their Rights

Ankur Jain | TNN

Ahmedabad: You might not get a kilo of onions for Rs 54, but this Right To Information (RTI) helpline helps thousands every month to fight for their rights — for only that amount. Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Parishad (MAGP)’s helpline, which was launched in May 2006 and has received more than 60,000 calls till now, is managed by a team of volunteers at a monthly expense of just Rs 54.
    The helpline has recently won a special award for its contribution to RTI activism from People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). The helpline has been chosen for this honour by an illustrious jury comprising Naryana Murthy, J M Lyngdoh, and Shekhar Singh.
    The helpline will be officially conferred the award at a ceremony in Delhi on January 20 by Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hedge and activist Anna Hazare. The helpline is run by RTI activists Harinesh Pandya, Pankti Jog, Twinkle Mangaonkar, Mital Patel, Sadhna Panday, and Punit Juneja. They take out time from their jobs to run the helpline.
    “Many helplines started in India after the RTI Act was announced in 2005 but the MAGP helpline remains the most professionally managed one,” said RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal. “The award jury, in fact, couldn’t find any helpline parallel to it. Interestingly, a good number of callers who contact t h e helpline are public information officers. Also, the group conducts RTI clinics every week.”
    The helpline gets calls from 12 states on issues ranging from domestic violence to dry water taps to irregularities in various housing schemes. “We have to update ourselves constantly as we can’t afford to sound ignorant on any law, judgment, or government scheme,” says Harinesh, who conceptualised the helpline in 2006. The only ex pense of running the helpline comes from the monthly mobile bill. “We decided to use a cell phone instead of a landline as cellphones don’t bind volunteers and give them freedom to move while attending to calls. Also cellphones allow us to keep a better record of callers,” says Jog, the MAGP coordinator. The volunteers take out two to three hours daily for the helpline and also meet every Saturday to discuss the latest RTI judgments and also new queries they received in the week. “There have been several instances of RTI appli cants being threatened by those who didn’t the information re vealed and we have had to speak to the local police sta tion officials and write to information commis sion to give protec tion to these ap p l i c a n t s, ” says Jog.
POWERING THE HELPLINE These professionals volunteer their service at the RTI helpdesk to tackle citizens’ queries

 

IMP DECISION-

CIC indicts IIT-Kharagpur for giving false info

Akshaya Mukul | TNN

New Delhi: The Central Information Commission on Saturday severely indicted IIT-Kharagpur, and its former public information officer T K Ghosal, for giving false information under the RTI Act about the Joint Entrance Examination-2006.
    “It appears to the Commission that false information has been given knowingly by the then PIO T K Ghosal,” CIC said. It also said, “The commission is surprised, pained and horrified at this complete falsehood to which the PIO of one of India’s leading education institutes has resorted to.” Ghosal is now the officiating registrar.
    CIC has asked the chairman of the board of governors of IIT-Kharagpur to inquire into the allegations made by appellant Rajeev Kumar, a professor of computer science in the same institute. CIC has also asked the additional superintendent of police, Kharagpur, to provide security to Kumar after making an assessment of the threats to him. “If any physical harm comes to Rajeev Kumar the police will be held responsible for not having performed their duty,” the order said.
    The commission took strong note of the fact that instead of appearing personally, Ghosal asked law firm Fox Mandal & Associates to represent it in this case. CIC said three people appearing on behalf of Ghosal — A Patra, public information officer, IIT-Kharagpur, Brigadier A K Joshi and Rajan K Sarkar, law officer — “are clueless as to why false information has been provided... Public money and interest could have been better served if Ghosal, who is officiating registrar, had appeared before the commission in this matter.”
    CIC has issued showcause notice to Ghosal and asked him to be present in the commission on March 17 with a written submission as to why penalty should not be imposed on him and disciplinary action should not be recommended.

(TOI 8.2.11.)

YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW
Property details not exempt under RTI

New Delhi: Overruling former chief information commission A N Tiwaris ruling on disclosure of property details,information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has said that the information is not exempt under the RTI Act.
In an order allowing for property details to be made public,Gandhi said, With due respect to the observations of information commissioner A N Tiwari,this Commission noted that in the Surendra Sharma case,the disclosure of property returns of an employee of the respondent company was exempted merely on the basis that the information was confidential and given on the assurance that the confidentiality would not be breached.
He said that there was no specific exemption to deny the information.Gandhi was listening to the plea of an Right to Information (RTI) applicant who had wanted to know from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi the details of unauthorised constructions and internal designs of some houses in the Defence Colony area with specific references to certain properties.TNN

 

(TIMES OF INDIA 9.1.2011) NAC & govt lock horns,now over RTI changes Himanshi Dhawan & Nitin Sethi | TNN New Delhi: The government refused to budge on the controversial RTI amendments in a meeting with the National Advisory Council on Tuesday.In fact,the wedge between the Sonia Gandhi-led council and the government got deeper with yet another ministry this time the Union ministry of personnel defying the thinktank and not entertaining the groups foray into its turf. Earlier the PMO,with the Planning Commission and the food ministry in tow,had taken on the NAC on the proposed food security law.Similarly,the tribal affairs ministry had outrightly rejected all the councils recommendations on reforms on the Forest Rights Act. On Tuesday,the ministry of personnel met the NAC sub-group on Right To Information Act and the results were no different,sources told TOI.The bone of contention between the two was the mandate to limit a RTI application to one subject and 250 words and abatement of an appeal after an applicants death. Despite insistence by the Council headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi,the department had rejected these key suggestions on the draft RTI rules and instead sent a 13-page reply to the council on its observations on the rules. On Tuesday,while the NAC sub-group members argued that these rules should be dropped as they were against the spirit of the act,officials of the department of personnel and training (DoPT) did not give in.An activist who attended the meeting said, The attitude of the officials was quite hostile.We dont think there will be a solution soon. Yet another NAC member speaking to TOI said,There was an exchange of views but the ministry officials did not budge on the critical concerns. Sources said that there could be another meeting with DoPT before the NAC meeting on February 26. The rules framed by the personnel department lay down provisions for the application process,fee for providing information,filing first appeals and appointments in information commissions. One of the provisions that the council had expressed its strong reservations is that an applicant will file an application in not more than 250 words,excluding the address of the public information officer and the applicant. The draft rules lay down that the application would only be on a single subject.Despite objections,the department has refused to budge and said that it is the well-educated who are unable to write an application in 250 words and instead go into long-winding explanations. Abatement of an appeal in case of an applicants death has also raised the ire of activists who have argued that this could be misused to kill people asking uncomfortable questions.

Ministries ignore RTI obligation Only 34 Of 70-Odd Ministries & Apex Bodies Have Transparency Officers Nidhi Sharma NEW DELHI THE attempt of the Central Information Commission (CIC),the final appellate authority for implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act,to bring transparency in the functioning of government departments through voluntary disclosure of information on websites has come a cropper. Of the 1,600 public authorities (government departments,apex bodies,autonomous organisations and ministries) listed by the Commission,only 125 have obeyed its directive and appointed transparency officers. The macro picture at the central level is no better with only 34 of 70-odd ministries and apex bodies appointing transparency officers.The ministries of finance,home and culture and the Prime Ministers Office have done nothing except expressing their intention to appoint a transparency officer. When RTI Act was notified in October 2005,it had laid down that ministries should voluntarily disclose information and computerise records within 120 days.The Commission,in a circular to all public authorities on November 18 last year,had reminded them to undertake this exercise in a phased manner under a transparency officer.Every department had been given 15 days to appoint the officer. However,the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT),the parent department of the Commission,took exception to the circular and said that by giving such directions CIC has overstepped its brief.In its letter to the authority,DoPT has said that by ordering to appoint transparency officers CIC was trying to create another bureaucracy. CIC,however,feels that it is only trying to assign another responsibility to the same set of bureaucrats present in the government departments.Speaking to ET,Central Information Commissioner Satyanand Mishra said,We are examining the matter.The Commission does not have the power to withdraw any of its orders.At the same time we dont need to justify our orders.If any department has an objection it can take legal recourse.Over the past few years in our deliberations as information commissioners,we had found that had the ministries voluntarily disclosed information many applications would not have been filed.This is why the directive was given. If a section has refused to comply,there is another section which has promptly appointed high-ranking officials as transparency officers to oversee the disclosure process.Cabinet Secretariat (Security) has appointed an additional secretary level officer as transparency officer.Others that have complied include Planning Commission,Department of Commerce,Air India,Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region,Ministry of Environment and Forests,Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises,Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Ministry of Mines.