Need Help: Peculiar behaviour on 2nd round with FAA

[murgie]

At a 2nd appeal hearing last April at the CIC, IC-T remanded my case back to RBI for a fresh consideration, and also suggested that RBI and I communicate with each other further to clarify the exact nature of information sought.

To do so I sought the exact format of a routine compliance filing
by various custodian banks. Not getting anything from RBI, I sent them information I had got from a custodian bank, and then they responded a little ambiguously on this matter. Later they simply refused to give the data I sought (FII activity data excluding FII identity). I filed an appeal with the Appellate Authority, who took more than the allotted 30 days and then responded as follows:

"Dear Sir
Please refer to your e-mails dated July 07, 2008 and July 10, 2008 on the captioned subject. In this regard, it is advised that since the present proceedings are in pursuance of the order of Central Information Commission, the remedy sought by you would lie with the Hon'ble Commission, in case you are aggrieved in any manner by the way in which the Reserve Bank of India had complied with the order of that authority, and not with the Appellate Authority of the Reserve Bank of India.

p.Appellate Authority"

QUESTION: Given that the CIC remanded it to RBI shouldn't the Appellate Authority again consider my appeal? (There's nothing that I see in the RTI Act consistent with the claim made above by the RBI Appellate Authority, that it need not hear the matter at all.)

QUESTION: Should I just consider this as deemed refusal, and make that an additional ground for complaint? (The RBI gambit is very clear --- because the CIC is taking an inordinately long time over appeals, and even in acknowledging receipt of an appeal or complaint, I am sure RBI is counting on academic appellants just giving up and going away, since in a reasonable planning horizon nothing is likely to happen.)

QUESTION: What stronger complaints can I raise in this matter? (As far as I can tell, RBI has not begun even the most cursory compliance with Section 4 of the RTI Act, and any potential invocation of s7(9) -- too much work for us -- ignores this complete non-compliance with s4.)

I am not quitting, but I have to realistically accept that RBI will successfully delay matters till Kingdom Come, and at least hope that at some point the penalty for non-disclosure begins to pinch someone at RBI. So I want to know the strongest complaints I can bring against RBI in this matter.

[karira]

Murgie,

I think best would be to stick to the subject of information that you want.

Since there is no headway with the CPIO or FAA of RBI, the only alternative is to go back to CIC with a Complaint - clearly refer to the earlier decision/order.