Complaint to CIC regarding antiquated information on its website

[karira]

To:
Mr Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar
Deputy Secretary cum Joint Registrar
Central Information Commission
New Delhi

Cc:
1. Mr Satyananda Mishra
Chief Information Commissioner

2. Ms. Anita Gupta
Transparency Officer
Date: 30 May 2012

Dear Sir,

COMPLAINT AGAINST ANTIQUATED INFORMATION ON THE WEBSITE OF THE CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION

As per the “suo-motu” disclosure under Sec 4(1)(b)(ii) on the Commissions website, one of your duties is “Monitoring of website of the Commission”.

Since it is one of your duties, I lodge the following COMPLAINT with you.

1. On the link: Declaration of Assets ::-:: By CIC / IC's (DECLARATION OF ASSETS)
- IC Information Commissioner and IC Basant Seth have been given the same serial numbers
- The asset details of IC Rajiv Mathur and IC Vijai Sharma have not been uploaded although they were administered the oath of office more than 3 months ago

2. From the link: Public Notices of CIC it appears that the last time the Commission issued a public notice was in September 2009.
Please upload all the public notices issued after that date. It is difficult to believe that the Commission has not issued any public notices for two and a half years !

3. On the link: High Court Rulings (HIGH COURT RULINGS) many recent HC rulings related to RTI and CIC have not been uploaded. I know of several such important rulings, which should be on the CIC website but no one in your office has taken the trouble of uploading them. The Commission has a Joint Secretary (Law) – Mr Akash Deep Chakravarti – and I am sure he keeps himself updated of the important and latest cases.

Similarly on the link: Supreme Court Rulings (SUPREME COURT RULINGS) the latest decision of the SC on powers of the Commission to direct disclosure of information, has not been uploaded.

4. On the link: http://www.cic.gov.in/Reports/MPR-Jan12.htm (MONTHLY DISPOSAL) the last Monthly statistics are for January 2012 – 5 months old !
On the other hand, “Minutes of Meetings” of the Commission show that on 18/5/2012, the Commission already discussed the April 2012 disposal rates !
Is there some “STATE SECRET” in the disposal statistics for February, March and April 2012, that ordinary citizens are being denied access to them ?

5. Under the link: Procedure for Request of Information (“WHAT DO WE DO”), only Sec 18 of the RTI Act has been reproduced. I am sure, you must be aware, that the Commission also has powers under Sec 19, Sec 20 as well as recommendatory powers under Sec 25. All these should be mentioned also on that same page.

6. In the link: List of State CICs & ICs (CICs OF STATES) the information contained is antiquated. It seems it has never been updated at all !
All those CICs and ICs of States have demitted office.
If you cannot regularly update such information on the Commissions website, it is better not to have such information at all.

7. In the link: Enquiry Reports (ENQUIRY REPORTS OF CIC) the last enquiry report is of 28/11/2008. Is it that CIC has not ordered any Enquiry since then – for three and a half years ?

8. In the link: Central Information Commission - Minutes of the Meetings (MINUTES OF MEETINGS) the Minutes are being updated very very late, as shown in the following table (only for the year 2012):

Date of the Commissions Meeting	Date/Time PDF Minutes created (assumed uploaded on same date)
8-5-2012	22-5-2012 at 12:07:09 PM
24-4-2012	7-5-2012 at 3:32:49 PM
13-03-2012	4-4-2012 at 12:00:53 PM
10-01-2012	9-2-2012 at 2:57:48 PM

I do not know the reasons for such delays, but uploading the Minutes 30 days after the meeting has taken place (or even 15 days ), has no meaning at all.

9. As per the link: Events (EVENTS) the last “event” was on 23^rd January 2009 – over three and a half years ago. Are you really sure that no “event” has taken place since then ?

10. Probably that is why the link: Forthcoming Events (FORTHCOMING EVENTS) leads to a blank page !

11. The link: Advertisements (LEGAL OPINIONS) contains only one opinion – dated 17-07-2007 . Is it possible that there are no “Legal Opinions” for the last 5 years ?

12. In the link: Articles (RELATED ARTICLES) the last article that has been uploaded is by one Mr T.N. Krishnamoorthi – on 6^th March 2009 !

13. There are two “RELATED LINKS” available at: Advertisements
Neither of them work !

14. From the link: Advertisements (LANDMARK ORDERS OF THE SIC’s) it appears that only one SIC has passed a landmark order - EVER ! And that too, in 2008 !

From the above examples, it is quite obvious that the CIC website contains antiquated information and is not updated on a regular basis.

As someone who is responsible for “Monitoring the website of the Commission”, you should be aware that the DARPG had released “Guidelines for Indian Government Websites” in February 2009 and these are now an “integral part of the CSMOP”. These guidelines can be downloaded from:

http://darpg.nic.in/darpgwebsite_cms...t_websites.pdf

These guidelines require (the word used is “MUST”) that the Government websites be regularly updated.

The above mentioned guidelines also require that there should be a “User Feedback” section. Since there isn’t one on the Commissions website, I have had to write this long letter to you !

Since this is a “Feedback” on the website of the Commission, I expect that you take into account my comments and also inform me regarding the action you take.

Even if you do not plan to take any action on my comments, please at least inform me so.

Thanking You,



(C.J. Karira)

[sharadphadke]

Sponsorer

One screen shot for Cause list details. May be Web man forgot CIC Shri Wajahat Habibullah retired long back but still his name is lingaring for many years! Many after him are not in the list.
CIC Cause list page.pdf

[karira]

To:
Mr Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar
Deputy Secretary cum Joint Registrar
Central Information Commission
New Delhi

R E M I N D E R No. 1

Dear Sir,


Ref: My COMPLAINT against antiquated information on the website of the
Central Information Commission – dated 30^th May 2012


This has reference to my above mentioned COMPLAINT regarding antiquated information available on the website of the Central information Commission, dated 30^th May 2012 and diarized in the Commission vide Diary Nr. 139578 dated 5^th June 2012.

Since then, I have been regularly visiting the website of the Commission and found that there is no change as yet in any of the items/pages which were stated in the Complaint.

I once again request you to look into my Complaint and take necessary action on a urgent basis.

Thanking You,

(C J Karira)