Dear Mr Singhal
1) The Commission belongs to nobody. It is expected to be a fair and transparent final appellate body for securing the right to information to the citizens of India (Section 19).
2) To achieve this end, the Commission has been empowered by the Act with limited powers of a Court to enquire into a few classes of grievances of the citizens pertaining to accessing information under the RTI Act (Section 18)
3) To ensure compliance of its orders the CIC (as defined in 2(b)) has been also conferred powers to levy a penalty on the errant PIOs, and for PIOs who are habitual offenders to recommend an adverse remark made in his file.
This in short are the powers and duties of the CIC/SIC.
If they stick within these powers and duties, acknowledging that they are just one of the so many other "Commissions" which exist in New Delhi to give 'babus' a post retirement sinecure there would have been no problem. Unfortunately 1 or 2 of them got delusions of grandeur and believed that section 12(4)/15(4) gives them some "imaginary powers" to be autonomous. Their paid legal consultant (who is otherwise a very sharp / astute person despite what activists think) gave them exactly the sort of advice they wished to hear - and which they took.
Our group was the first to say that matter would go to SC. We are also the first to say that matter can go very badly against CIC in the SC.
The Delhi HC bench was very against Mr Habibullah, and I think that in SC they will be even more so. No doubt CIC will obtain an interim stay to allow them to function in "benches" but the final verdict will set the RTI movement back by a hundred years - which is what they wanted all along.
--- In rti_india@yahoogroups.com, M K Singhal <mk.singhal@...> wrote:
>
> Some Issues
> Mr Venkatesh Nayak of humanrightsinitiativewrote on 27.05.10 that the saddest part in this matter is that the majority of members of this group are only watching silently without speaking up. The Commission will not belong to the members if they treat it as the domain of the Commissioners and the babus only. Although some comments on this judgement have appeared during the past days, but the issues raised in this judgement have neither been identified nor commented upon by members. To my mind, the following issues can be readily identified and I would suggest members to give their views on these issues as soon as possible:
> 1. The matter arose because ofnon compliance of statutory directions given in sec 4 generally and in sec 4(1)(b) by DDA. As per sec 4(1)(b), DDA should have published all information on the 17 points given within 120 days from the enactment of the act (15 Jun 05) ie by 15 Oct 05. In view of DDA inability to comply with these statutory directions, a number of complaints/appeals were filed by various persons u/s 18 & 19 and CIC had thereupon repeatedly directed DDA to comply with the requirements of sec 4 ever since 2005 till his last orders dated 22.09.09, some parts of which were challenged by DDA through this WP. The case thus clearly proves utter incompetency of CIC to get compliance of sec 4 by DDA (and by most PAs) by not imposing penalties u/s 20 and instead give vague orders giving a handle to DDA to file such vague WP against its orders.
> 2. The bench noted thatthepetitioner DDAwasdutyboundbyvirtueof the  provisions  of  Section  4  of  the  RTI  Act  to  publish  the  information u/s 4. However, Sec4merelysetoutthe obligationsofthePAs, itdidnotprovidethemachineryto enforcethe implementationof theseobligations. What does it mean?. Should strictures not have been passed against DDA for this lapse and why did the bench call statutory directions given in sec 4 as ‘Obligations’ instead of statutory directions in their entire judgement.
> 3.  In its submissions through WP, DDA claimed relief on three points viz (i) striking down of adverseinferencewithregardtothe absenceoftheVice-Chairman,DDAfrom its hearing on 03.09.09 (ii) quashing of orders given for formation ofan  ‗enquiry  committee‘ and (ii)quashing CIC Management Reguations beingultravirestheRighttoInformationAct, 2005. Did CIC counsel represent CIC stand in this matter properly. His pleadings, as given in the judgement, were most illogical and damaging.
> 4. Was the bench attitude in this matter hostile to CIC and the implementation of RTIA05.
> 5. Does this judgement call for amendments to RTIA05 and the statutory rules made thereunder.
> I will be giving my comments on the above and other issues that come to my mind myself in due course. The members views are solicited as soon as possible.
> M K Singhal, Engineer-in-Chief (Retd), Consultant and Arbitrator
>
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