When ORGER is injustice

[GAUTAM BHATTA]

NDTV asked RTI activists to share their experience with any Information Commission. The following messages have been posted in its website with respect to the inaction and also illaction on the part of SIC, West Bengal.Would the concerned Information Commission will take care of these grievances ?

Posted by Debojyoti Chowdhury Tuesday, June 30, 2009
STATE INFORMATION COMMISSION, WEST BENGAL , in one of its ORDER dated 02/02/09 mentioned as below. "Perused the appeal of Shri Debojyoti Chowdhury dated 06.01.2009 against the decision of the State Public Information Officer & Appellate Authority of Co-operation Directorate. Also perused the original RTI application of Shri Chowdhury along with the reply of the State Public Information Officer dated 03.07.2008 vide U.O. No. 461 and disposal of the Appellate Authority dated 22.03.2008. It appears to the Commission that the reply of the State Public Information Officer , especially the detailed order of the Appellate Authority has fully furnished the information or grounds of rejection thereof with sufficient clarity and logic. The 2nd appeal therefore, does not stand." Here it is very interesting to note that the Information Commission in this order mentioned that--the reply of the State Public Information Officer dated 03.07.2008 vide U.O. No. 461 and disposal of the Appellate Authority dated 22.03.2008." Anybody has got any idea about the RTI Act & activities , he will be able to understand that if SPIO ''s reply date was 03/07/2008, in that case how the disposal of the Appellate Authority could happen on an earlier date (22/03/08)? If it was a typographical mistake , then Hon''ble State Chief Information Commissioner should have corrected it before signing and/or the Secretary of the State Information Commission could have corrected it before sending of that order. This is one unique example where ---- Order was injustice... The simple statement , without any reason whatsoever, that--"reply of the State Public Information Officer , especially the detailed order of the Appellate Authority has fully furnished the information or grounds of rejection thereof with sufficient clarity and logic." does not at all prove that both the SPIO & the Appellate Authority acted diligently and properly as per RTI Act.The appellant in his 1st appeal and also in the 2nd appeal elaborated to show that neither the SPIO nor the Appellate Authority provided proper ''reply'' in most of those queries. And the rejection of the query by the 1st Appl. Authority was baseless and really without any logic. But unfortunately the SIC''s opinion the rejection was ''logical''. But in any judicial /quasi-judicial order the judgment should have been given with proper reasoning. But in this present case neither the 1st Appellate Authority nor the 2nd Appellate Authority ( State Information Commissioner ) did provide any reason whatsoever to establish its order. What was the difficulty of the SIC to clarify its ORDER with proper reasoning? So to me it was a glaring injustice to give such an unwanted and biased order, without any reason. Thank you for giving this opportunity to express our views.

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<TABLE style="WIDTH: 6.25in; mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in" class=MsoNormalTable border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=600><TBODY><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; WIDTH: 6.25in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 0in" width=600>Posted by Swapan Bandyopadhyay Sunday, June 28, 2009

</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 1"><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; WIDTH: 6.25in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 0in" width=600><?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><v:shapetype id=_x0000_t75 class=inlineimg title="Stick Out Tongue" alt="" stroked="f" filled="f" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" src="http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/images/smilies/tongue.gif" smilieid="5" border="0" o</v:shapetype>referrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600"><v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f></v:formulas><V:path o:connecttype="rect" gradientshapeok="t" o:extrusionok="f"></V:path><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</o:lock><v:shape style="WIDTH: 7.5pt; HEIGHT: 7.5pt" id=_x0000_i1025 type="#_x0000_t75" alt=""><v:imagedata o:href="http://rti.ndtv.com/images/spacer.gif" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\P4\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_imag e001.png"></v:imagedata></v:shape>

</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; WIDTH: 6.25in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 0in" width=600>1. Penalty is mandatory if delay not justified and burden of justification is entirely on the PIO /AA. 2. Timely response to RTI Applications is a statutory obligation of the PIO /AA.; grade excuses such as - I was busy with other very important work (then direct someone to answer as deemed PIO ), or I have not been adequately trained under RTI Act (ignorance of law is no excuse), etc. do not constitute justification as required by the law. 3. It is not necessary for the PIO /AA to have acted in a mala-fide manner; mere unjustified delay is sufficient cause for inviting mandatory penalty . But I have some gone through some ''orders'' of the State Information Commission of West Bengal , when the SIC admitted that the delay caused by the Public Information Officer was not justified; but no penalty was imposed. Is it not a biased decision , only to help the erring Public Information Officer and thus acted agsinst the spirit of the RTI Act ? Even after repeated warning, the concerned PIO did not bother to furnish ''information'' within the stipulated period of 30 days- and is getting indulgence from the State Information Commission, ffice:smarttags" /><ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place>.

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<TABLE style="WIDTH: 6.25in; mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in" class=MsoNormalTable border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=600><TBODY><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; WIDTH: 348.75pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 0in" width=465>Posted by Rabindranath Palit Wednesday, June 24, 2009
</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 1"><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; WIDTH: 348.75pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 0in" width=465><v:shape style="WIDTH: 7.5pt; HEIGHT: 7.5pt" id=_x0000_i1026 type="#_x0000_t75" alt=""><v:imagedata o:href="http://rti.ndtv.com/images/spacer.gif" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\P4\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_imag e001.png"></v:imagedata></v:shape>
</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; WIDTH: 348.75pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 0in" width=465>In a news paper it was reported that one State Public Information Officer transferred one RTI application after 55 days of receiving the RTI application ( Co operation Department, <ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place>)That too, after receiving the 1st appeal application. As per RTI Act it should have been done within a period of 5 days on receiving the application. Afterwards it was reported that the sought for information was not furnished even within the period of seven months. The applicant submitted one complaint to the SIC , <ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place> then only the reply was provided. I wanted to know the correctness of the report published in the news paper and justification of the delay in furnishing information and also any penalty was imposed to the State Public Information Officer , Co operation Department or not. My application was sent to the SPIO , Co op Deptt. <ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place> . The concerned PIO sent reply of my queries . In his reply he defended his action regarding delay as '' most of the officials'' were on duty outside the Department regarding election duty. So the delay and as such there was no lapse in the RTI activity, he claimed. But the point is there was no general election , no Panchayat election( large scale) in <ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place> in 2007. And is it possible that most of the officials were absent from '' normal office duty'' for more than a period of seven months ? One complaint was submitted to the SIC, <ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place>. After about a period of three months , it was learnt from the SIC, West Bengal that my complaint was not considered at all- as there was no need of considering all sorts of complaints (verbal communication). And till date I did not receive any response from the State Information Commission, <ST1:place w:st="on">West Bengal</ST1:place> with respect to my above complaint .
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