RTI, nuisance, corruption and future

[princepr]

Dear members,
I am a PIO and would start this thread and present my point in a slightly different angle.

We in this forum are actively doing something strong to propagate the virtue the RTI act brought to us. Yes of course, without the act, public offices would not be this transparent. And WE the citizens of India are getting the real access to the offices. But who are the people in that WE? Only people below poverty lines? only people who are not educated? only farmers? only the labourers? only those who are not the working class? only the educated? only the bureaucrats? only the working class? only the law makers? only the politicians? NO. We means all cross sections of our people.

But unfortunately, most of the discussions in this forum assumes that WE means only the poor, uneducated farmers and labourers. The discussions try to propagate a dangerous idea: there are only two classes- the common poor man and the corrupt officers (or administrators). This perception is not going to save India. All of us must understand that all offices are not unfriendly to the public. All officers are not corrupt also. There are lot many sincere and hard working officers. I can tell you that at least 30% of the officers in an office will fall in this category. The rest 70% may be corrupt, insincere, lazy, irregular or (and) ineffective. And on the work and efforts of the first 30% that the Indian administrative sector rolls.

If we think that RTI is a means for the nonworking class to fight against the working class, can we ever imagine where will we end up. There are instances where some public nuisances started using the act as a weapon towards the offices.

I would say one instant. (i already mentioned it in another post). One person was regularly stealing water from my office premises to which the security personnel objected and reported. This is an educational institution and since he steals plenty of water in the night, the students face very serious scarcity of water in the day time and he was warned for doing that. Now he started making all sort of allegations against the security personnel. He demanded me to cut off a tree branch which he alleges that spoils his premises by droping leaves. I understood that there is no fact associated with the demands and rejected the same. The man began sending too many RTI questions to me. And the questions are actually not RTI questions. He frames some story related to the Institution first and ask questions about that. They are not questions. They are some defaming statements about me, my staff members, the security personnel, etc. Yesterday I furnished reply for 150 questions in a single application. (Almost 130 I rejected). He uses RTI as a weapon to say all sort of unparliamentary words to the office. I and my office have done only right things. I could have easily collect some money from him and spare him some water and could be corrupt. But since I did not do that and stood stern, I and my office are now paid the reward of defamation from this person!

You dear members can say that you have to hear the other man's version also. Sure you are. But you can believe me. This is 100 % true.

So what is the outcome. I am against corruption. I did some thing to uphold that. And I am suffering.

Please understand that by sending series of questions to the office, a person adds burden to that 30% of sincere officers. The remaining 70% will still wont care about that. They will not involve at all in preparing answers. Even if many of them are suspended, they wont care. They have strong political hold and money to resolve any issue, which I dont think our RTI can ever. So what is happening is, the very limited good man power in the public offices are now preparing RTI answers and do nothing for nation building. RTI act is well and good. But I am seriously afraid whether it in the present form will eventually do good or bad to this country. Transparency in office procedures may reduce corruption at first. After that, those people will find fool proof systematic method to do corruption. Through RTI act one will get all the documents. And you will never understand that corruption has taken place.

I think, if India has to progress, RTI has to be reformed. There must be some control over what can be asked under RTI. Also there must be some limit over the number of questions one can ask. There must be some restrictions that one RTI application can carry only questions related to one particular topic. If a citrizen asks some thing beyond the act, there must be some provisions to punish him. The PIOs and PAs also must get protection from defamation. If we are not doing so, we will be overloading the non-corrupt officers of this country and also will be demoralizing them. India will reach no where in such a situation. 70% is already gone. We must do some thing to protect the good being of the sincere 30%.

The problem of corruption cannot be resolved by RTI, I feel. If you prove that there is corruption, How many will be getting punished in this country? People makes crores of money as bribes, other deals etc. Are they all punished? The social system of dealing these kind of people has to be changed. There are enough laws and acts. 90% of them is not implemented here. If corrupt persons get model punishment, then only corruption can be stopped. See the example of Gulf countries. Otherwise we can continue our fruitless efforts of fighting corruption.

Sorry, if I hurt some of you. I would welcome a serious discussion among our members. Please dont be biased blindly and tell that anything sent to an office under the subject title RTI is truly RTI.

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[mahekovoor]

dear prince,

on series of rti application,i remember my experience with the higher education department of "god's own country".

Just to get a copy of an agreement govt had with the management and some related information,i had to file 6 separate rti applications to the university,higher edu dept,education min,law department,technical directorate and to the Chief secretary,s office of kerala, and an appeal.

I had used very decent language and polite manners in all my applcations. Initially SPIO,higher education dept has redirected my application to CEE under him to reply. However,even CEE could not give the required information,i had filed an appeal with SPIO of higher education dept and further rti's to other dept. Finally,when all other dept has started redirecting my rti's to SPIO,higher education dept,he had sent me a copy of the agreement and still has not given other connected information sought by me in this regard. Well i will have to file further appeal etc.

From my experience,who is the villain here? Consider the mental agony,time and money spent on filing these rti's for genuine information. All those information were of public interest (if not affecting the entire population,atleast affecting a section of them) and could have been displayed in the website of the education department. Atleast the SPIO,higher education dept could have provided the information initially itself.

Now,who is responsible for the time,money and effort wasted in this excersise?

The time spent by those officers are not there personal time. They had spent the time comfortably, during their "paid working hours". The loss is for the "public" only as I have incurred the loss both as a "tax payer" and as an individual.

I am not trying to "exagerate" a personal experience. If you go through various posts in this forum,you can find many similar experiences.

However,i do sympathise with your personal experience in the implementation of rti in your area of work. But within the overall limitation of the act,you can restrict your answers for "nuisance questions"

[pcsharma60]

Sponsorer

Dear members,

Yes U r right, the corruption can not be resolved by RTI. Also there are so many issues, which also could not be resolved under RTI. U being an PIO know this very well. My opinion towards the RTI, it stands for Right to Ignore Act not the Information Act. The Commissioner of the Information Commission either are the head of the departments or the head of Government who were retired and take the responsibility to lead the commission. Similar is the story of Central Vigilance Commission. A Few months ago, one of the Vigilance Commissioner, Central Vigilance Commission paid his/her un-official visit to Amritsar. I had seen at that time various officers were there to receive the said Vigilance Commissioner. This is also a type of corruption. How we can eradicate or resolved such a major problem thro RTI. It is impossible for the society. Here in this world all are full of attachment, seeks fruit of actions and is greedy and always oppressive by nature and of impure conduct and is always affected by joy n sorrow.

Thanx a lot

P C Sharma

[Rajinder Bhatia]

Dear Sir, There is an other side of the coin also. After independance, We are failed to establish true democracy in the country. A citizen without bribe can not think to get his work done. How the Public welfare funds are used is still a question. Rich and influential class have some previleges in the society. Previlege to be heard sympethatically is one of them. Just analysis the data regarding filing of applications, complaints and appeals under the Act, if 50 out of the 5000 are found to be misuse of the Act. Thank God that in the country of 115 crore there are 4950 persons those have courage to ask the HUKAMRAN something as their right. Postpone the discussion on misuse of the Act, First of all, let the citizens resotre courage to ask for their rights as citizen. Please do not discourage the information seekers with this long, useless discussions. Government officials are feeling harassessed due to this Act. What about the ordinary countrymen those have been harassessed by the so called Hukamran since 1947.

[princepr]

Dear Sir,

Dear Mr. Bhatia. Thank you for the observations. Nice, we have to be caring towards the ordinary citizen of this country. No doubt in that. And only if they get the real power which they are entitled India can be truly democratic as Gandhiji dreamed. I am merely not advocating for the PIOs and other officers who are some times being harassed. Harassing is superfluous issue. If some public nuisance harrasses me in the shadow of the act, I wont care at all. But through this discussion I would rise the point that, if nuisances are not avoided, and if there is no control over the volume of information one can ask (presently no such proivisions in the act), our offices are likely to be flooded in the near future by RTi requests and complaints and the genuine common man will not get the real information in time. That is not the purpose of the RTI act. Please look at the example of our judiciary. If you file a civil case, it takes at least 5 years to get it settled in the lowest court. Appeals and others may take another 10 years. See a long 15 years to settle a case. Who suffers? We all. The same is likely to happen with RTI also. We must not allow that. RTI is such a treasure to the common man of this country. So instead of addressing the emotional happiness that RTI gives one, let us address the issueon actual and practical grounds.

[princepr]

dear prince,

Thank you mahekovoor, dear friend, it is really sorry about your pathetic experience. I dont know why some useless PIOs are reluctant to give information. May be the psychology of them. I can proudly say that I respond to the maximum to all RTI questions I get. I have got some 30 RTI applications so far. 10 of them was from a nuisance. The rest 20 I gave nice answers I think. They even didnot file any first appeal. The case of the nuisance- he filed appeal for each of his application. Now I am negelecting him. I had a discussion with the commision too on the said nuisance. The rest is all good. Again since there is some nuisance, the greatness of the act does not vanish. My point is if we dont do something initially to control such things, I am afraid, the act may not be taken seriously in the near future.We cannot allow that.