The chapter you emailed me about Ms Roy and the other activists is a real eye opener and bears all the marks of a serious investigative exercise.
Is it possible to buy a copy of this book, or can somebody in India buy it and ship it to me (United Kingdom) ?.
The paragraphs succeeding the ones you emailed are equally interesting and I've added it below for your comments.
Roy is signatory to the 'Decisions and Action Plan' of the 'People's Conference against Globalisation, 21st-23rd March 2001, New Delhi'. The convener of this conference was one S.P. Shukla (also ex-IAS) and its full report appeared as a 'special feature' in the April 2001 issue of 'Liberation, the central organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)'.
Now, both SP Shukla and Shekhar Singh of the NCPRI are members of the unregistered 'unstructured' Right to Information: Citizens' Forum Against Corruption, CFAC, which itself is a creation of something called Parivartan. So this Forum, the NCPRI and Parivartan were all asked for information of the people who sponsored that 'people's conference' and whether the CPI (M-L) was one of the sponsors. Are you surprised that not one of them would give the information? And yet on the CFAC are a retired naval chief, eight retired very senior civil servants, a retired high court chief justice, and a serving civil servant who is also in Parivartan. And they're all concerned about 'public accountability'.
The CPI (M-L) is an avowed advocate of selective violence and has an established record of anti-nationalism and anti- Hinduism. Associated in the work of Parivartan are Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy and Shekhar Singh. The inference is obvious.
Such hypocrisy is characteristic of Nehruvian secularists. Mander, himself a Gandhi poseur, played at being Gandhi-poor from the security of a lavish monthly income of Rs 2 lakhs and a comfortable upscale apartment. Aruna Roy is like him and her namesake, the more notorious Arundhati Roy who, even as she publicly sympathised with tribal people, privately grabbed their land for her personal use. Aruna Roy protests that a certain State government initiative was a 'move [that] amounts to attempts at giving away public land to private entrepreneurs at throwaway prices' - but she never found it necessary to protest her namesake's land-grab. Aruna Roy enjoys the security of an affluent family, affluent and influential connections, a large government-gifted property in Rajasthan available to her for her use and that of her family and friends, and a valuable apartment available to her in the national capital. She then plays – in the manner of a Versailles shepherdess – at being poor.
Dear Nicholas
Pardon me for answering your email in place of Mr Sharma. The reason I am doing so is because some of our members have been instigated by corrupt elements inside the CIC to file complaints against this group to Yahoo to silence us.
1) The essential facts concerning Subhash Chandra Agrawal's out-of-turn hearings, alleged to be running into the 100's, are on the CIC website and are also substantiated by a decision of the First Appellate Authority of CIC, in the matter of his namesake Subhash Chandra who is disabled. You can google-search for it.
2) I shall email you the relevant chapter of the book concerning the dubious modes of financing of Aruna Roy, Shekhar Singh , Harsh Mander etc. as you had requested. The book is also available in the library of the Lok Sabha (Parliament of India) as per its publisher. The book's publisher has also put substantial portions of the 1st edn of the book into the public domain from which I am reproducing some small extracts as fair use.
"Aruna Roy is a great one for integrity and public accountability but
herself cunningly evades it through a legal loophole. She admitted
that foreign institutional support in kind has been her practice since
the inception of her NGO. This includes support from ActionAid. Its
website editorially lauded her, she in turn declared Mr. Mander's
`integrity cannot be questioned', and Mander responded that her group
is `distinguishable from other NGOs in that it had no funding
whatsoever and who chose to follow the lifestyle and standards of
living of the rural folk with whom they intended to stay'. Such mutual
admiration!
Mander certifies that the MKSS has `no funding'! He certifies Roy's
lifestyle and standard of living as Gandhian. Yet he - and Roy - draw
a most un-Gandhian distinction between accepting foreign institutional
support in kind but not in cash. For example, they won't accept the
money for their international air tickets, but they'll accept the
tickets, thank you. This is the grossest hypocrisy. Not only does she
accept unlimited foreign funds in kind but, contrary to the public
image she generates for herself in our country, she has been doing so
for a long time and from a wide range of foreign donors. And, of
course, she and Mander know quite well that foreign help in kind
escapes government monitoring, whereas foreign help in cash requires
reporting and accounting to the Government.
But funneling of FCRA donations is possible, and she closes her eyes
to its illegality. Consider her MKSS-approved Lok Shikshan Sansthan.
It openly suggests that FCRA `money can be sent to' its founder-NGO
Prayas or to the Roy-connected SWRC Tilonia `and it would be
transferred to our organisation's account'."
Sarbajit
--- In rti_india@yahoogroups.com, Nicholas Santiago <nick.santiargo@...> wrote:
>
> I am considerably perturbed by the series of allegations that Mr.Sharma has
> been making on this group. This latest post on Mr. Subhash Chandra Agrawal's
> disbilities again appears to me as despicable and utterly unsubstantiated
> I am still waiting for the details of the book on our financing for RTI
> pioneer Mrs Aruna Roy. If I do not hear from you within the week either
> kindly unsubscribe me from the group or permit me to let myself out.
>
> Nicholas
>> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 11:27 PM, S.D. Sharma <anonsharma@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Sarabjit has dealt a powerfull blow for Indias citizens. Somone can kindly
> > explain me why Habibulah used 1 year old email from Sarabjit in his orders.
> >
> > "*Included in applicant Er. Sarbajit Roy's e-mails, copies of which are
> > projected on various blogs are the following comments:-*
> >
> > *"We also read in the press how the great RTI Activist Subhas Chand
> > Agrawal extracted the information in RTI from the Cabinet Secretariat.*
> >
> > *But, what we do not read in the newspapers how these RTI `haramis'
> > operate, and how Mr. Habibullah is doing everything in his power to
> > facilitate them. Last year Mr Shekhar Singh of NCPRI applied for about
> > 50,000 pages of documents from the CIC. He wanted copies of all appeals and
> > complaints filed in the CIC and also their High Court pleadings. To save
> > money he demanded that all these be digitized and given to him at Rs. 50 on
> > a CD. The matter was dismissed in First Appeal but crucially the First
> > Appellate Authority Shri Mohammed Haleem Khan was compromised and he allowed
> > the material to be given without following 3rd party procedure u/s 11. He
> > also demanded the cost of digitizing the*
> > *documents (i.e. 67 paise per page) from Mr Shekhar Singh – the bill
> > worked out to about Rs 27,000/-. Shekhar Singh refused to pay even this and
> > wrote a letter / email to Mr Habibullah.*""
> >
> > If asked any CPIO at C.I.C why Subhash chandra aggrawal is given so much
> > assistance by Mr Habibulah, they will tell you that he is onlythe dummy for
> > Mandarweb in C.I.C whose local spymaster is Shekhar singh. They wil tell you
> > that PA to habibulah phones them to give Subhash aggrawal out of turn
> > hearing in hundreds of cases. The orders in aggrawalas matters are drafted
> > by Shekar singh, Prasanth bushan, PK sheyasker etc. to blackmail people in
> > supreme court. In 2007 when a upright PIO prtested in writing about so much
> > favouritsm, to Subhash aggrawal, he was given a cettificate with Suhash
> > chandra is handicapped person having disabiity and to be given special
> > priority in putting up cases for disposal. Like this about 100 out of turn
> > cases were given to Subash aggrawal on direct instruction from Habibulahs
> > office on fake disability certificate. The internal inquiry report in this
> > matter is buryed to save Habibulah.
> >
> >> > On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 10:27 PM, sarbajitr <sroy1947@...> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> In a recent CIC decision
> >> http://www.rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/CIC_WB_A_2009_000653_M_41446.pdf
> >> my friend <smile> Mr Habibullah had this to say about Mr Tarun Kumar (then
> >> CPIO now FAA of CIC)
> >>
> >> "Although CPIO has indeed advised appellant Shri Shekhar Singh to seek
> >> this information from the High Court or Supreme Court, he has so done
> >> without further clarifying that this information is not for the CPIO of the
> >> Central Information Commission to give, for the reasons argued before us in
> >> second appeal. CPIO can then be held to have misread the law ..."
> >>
> >> Note here that Mr Habibullah is admonishing his present FAA for having
> >> "misread the law".
> >>
> >> Mr Tarun Kumar was exactly carrying out the directions of IC A.N.Tiwari in
> >> this landmark decision "CIC/AT/C/2008/00335" at
> >> http://www.rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/AT-27022009-01.pdf
> >> Unfortunately there is nobody to defend the PIOs and FAAs of
> >> the CIC from the 'haraamis' who infest the place and bring his
> >> exemplary decision to Mr Habibullah's notice.
> >>
> >> Did Mr Habibullah actually want to say that it is Mr Tiwari who is
> >> misreading the law ?? Are there 2 sets of rules for Information seekers in
> >> RTI - ordinary citizens must face Mr Tiwari but well connected and well
> >> financed 'haramis' (a common Urdu/Hindustani word which Mr Habibullah
> >> inexplicably considers to be an abuse) can avail Mr Habibullah's
> >> facilitations to get court judgements free of cost ??
> >>
> >> Here are the key paras of ANT's decision, Mr Habibullah would do well to
> >> read it and explain why there are different strokes for different folks at
> >> the CIC.
> >>
> >> "6. Another point raised by the appellant/complainant is that CPIO, in
> >> calling upon the appellant to collect the court orders from the respective
> >> courts or from the courts' websites, somehow violated the provisions of the
> >> RTI Act.
> >>
> >> 7. I'm afraid this surmise is equally incorrect. In the scheme of the RTI
> >> Act, a document to be liable for disclosure ought to be `held' by a public
> >> authority, which in the first place was responsible for its creation/issue.
> >> Any other public authority subsequently coming to possess that information
> >> incidentally, or on account of the fact that the subsequent public authority
> >> was party to a proceeding such as a court matter, could not make that latter
> >> public authority the original
> >> holder of the information within the meaning of Section 2(j) of the RTI
> >> Act. This scheme is perfectly logical because the disclosability of the
> >> information is a function which can be performed only by the original holder
> >> of the information and not the others who come to hold that information
> >> incidentally. The court order is always in the public domain, in the sense,
> >> that it can be taken from the Court Registry on payment of the fee
> >> prescribed by the Court. No party can claim that another public authority,
> >> who for some reasons happen to possess a
> >> certain court order, must give copies to an applicant only because that
> >> request is made under the RTI Act. If this is allowed, every applicant would
> >> like to get copies of the Court orders from the parties to the Court case
> >> ⎯ who might also be a public authority ⎯ rather than go through
> >> the process of obtaining the same
> >> copy from the Court Registry. If allowed, it will amount to abuse of the
> >> RTI Act, and will also be offensive to the systems laid-down by the Courts.
> >>
> >> 8. This particular case is only one among several such matters which are
> >> reaching the Commission. The petitioners use the RTI route to access
> >> information held by a public authority which might have originated from
> >> another public authority. So long as this information is an open
> >> information, disclosure of this from any point should not really matter. But
> >> the matter becomes slightly complicated when the originator of the
> >> information wishes to treat that information as confidential or secret. In
> >> such a situation, for the respondents to
> >> disclose this information to an applicant without reference to the
> >> originator of the information may jeopardize the interest of the originator.
> >> In my view, all such matters should be examined within the purview of
> >> Section 11(1) of the RTI Act for the originator of the information becomes a
> >> third-party in the connect of an admittedly confidential information which
> >> has reached the hands of the public
> >> authority from whom the information is sought.
> >>
> >> 9. Regardless of the orders of the Appellate Authority, it would be,
> >> therefore,entirely incorrect to fault the CPIO for directing the appellant
> >> to obtain the court related order from the source where such orders are
> >> kept, i.e. the Court Registry. There is absolutely no reason why a party to
> >> a court proceeding should be obligated to disclose the order of the court to
> >> other applicants, especially when
> >> the option to obtain that order from the Court Registry itself is always
> >> open."
> >>
> >> Sarbajit
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