Dear Lokesh
Sorry I could not reply to this earlier as I was somewhat busy.
Although I am gratified that you consider me capable of writing
a book, I believe that the answer to our common problems lie
elsewhere.
Sometime back our group had an open poll (I am sure that if the
same poll was replicated on other Yahoo groups the results would
be different) to rate the ICs at CIC. ICs MLS and ANT scored the highest, and IC's like SG ranked at the bottom.
The common thing about both MLS and ANT is that they do not
believe in applying "penalty" as the solution to every systemic
problem. For eg. Yogesh Mehta is not the problem at NCW, its
Girija Vyas, Mohini Giri and all those other political boot-lickers who have trashed the institution. It is because of people like Yogesh Mehta (BTW I hold no brief for him) which allows the NCW to
continue to partially function at all. It is an open secret that
the top brass of NCW make crores of (black) money from the "male"
side whenever dowry / 498A / DMV complaints reaches them.
About 6 years back I visited office of NCW and encountered Yogesh
Mehta who was then the Chief Law Officer. In contrast to the plush
offices of the Chairwoman and members, he occupied a small room
with a desert cooler shared with 2 other assistants. It was overflowing with papers, he was very patient, explained the NCW's
position to me properly, gave me his personal email ID (because the
official email had not been working properly for many months) in
addition and ensured that my email was placed in the records of the
NCW and duly considered.
Now note that this was pre-RTI Act. If after the RTI Act comes into
force and officers like Yogesh Mehta are forced into corners, harrassed and painted as the villians, then we had better reconsider the aims of the RTI Act itself and the persons who use it.
To this end, experienced ICs like MLS and ANT believe that the best "penalty" which can be applied against the PUBLIC AUTHORITY (not the PIO) is for the information to be given to DESERVING ("responsible") APPLICANTS who can do something with the info. In such cases their orders are generally tightly drafted to ensure compliance and to lessen chances of Writs against them.
In summary, the best "penalty" that an honest IC can give is to
ENSURE that information is PROVIDED speedily to deserving applicant.
This is the only way to reform the P/As by exposing them.
Sarbajit
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