Purge Orissa Information Commission of all 'bogus' and toxic personnel illegally inducted by Mr.D.N.Padhi as Chief OSIC to serve his misappropriation and anti-RTI agenda
1) Aware that the damage suit for Rs.1 lakh lodged by Mr.D.N.Padhi in his official capacity as the Chief Orissa Information Commission against me and a co-activist is not going to lapse on its own with his superannuation, I can't but lay bare my long-held reading on how Mr.Padhi deliberately pursued a typical personnel policy as against the mandate of RTI Act, only to amass huge fortunes for himself at the expense of the public exchequer and as well to root out the budding RTI law before it blossoms in the soil of Orissa.
2) As for a recap of my previous mail, Mr.D.N.Padhi abusing his office and authority as Chief Orissa Information Commissioner, and going against the mandate of Section 26 of RTI Act 2005, has been squarely responsible for misappropriation of a total of Rs.2 crore 93 thousand and 50 thousand during last 5 years in the name of awareness activities. This whole amount, as mandated by the above Section, should have gone entirely to the Nodal RTI Officer of the State i.e. Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Information and Publication Relations Dept, which was declared so, as per Rule 2(1-f) of Orissa RTI Rules 2005, and with the help of that money the State Government should have carried out the needful awareness and training activities as mentioned in Section 26 of the Act. By misappropriating the above amount of money to himself Mr.Padhi not only neglected the adjudicatory and reporting functions entrusted to himself and the Commission under Sections 18, 19, 20 and 25, but also prevented the State Government from carrying out any of its mandatory obligations as provided under Section 26 of the Act.
3) As already mentioned, Mr.Padhi with a twin motive to amass huge public money for himself and his pet ones and as well to stamp out RTI Act altogether from the soil of Orissa through foul and dubious means, did arbitrarily install a huge contingent (by far the largest among all State Information Commissions in the country!) of his hand-picked men and women as Officers and Employees of the Commission and did himself dictate the amount of their salaries and allowances along with the terms and conditions of service, so that each of them slavishly obeys his self-willed diktat including the white lies without any demur or murmur just as domestic servants do.
4) Mr.Padhi knowing well that it is not he in the capacity of Chief OSIC, but only and alone the State Government, which is competent as per Section 16(6) of the Act to 'provide the State Chief Information Commissioner and the State Information Commissioner with such officers and employees as may be necessary for the efficient performance of their functions under the Act, and the salaries and allowances payable to and the terms and conditions of service of the officers and other employees appointed for the purpose of this Act shall be such as may be prescribed". Mr.Padhi, if he be not a moron, ought to know that the word 'prescribed' here means, as defined under Section-2(g) of RTI Act, 'prescribed by rules made under this Act by the appropriate Government'. The moot point arises, has the Sate Government of Orissa ever prescribed any detail rules on the personnel matters of Commission? The answer is an emphatic no. Well, Mr.Padhi, in his foolhardy zeal to defend the indefensible, may hold out those pages of the Commission's website, where the powers and duties and salary details of the Officers and Employees are mentioned, claiming it as 'the prescribed' one. But salute to the RTI Act, which preempting the ominous chance of Padhi-like rogues creeping into high offices like Chief IC, had additionally mandated under Section-27 (1 & 2-d) of the Act that the prescribed rules concerning the Officers and Employees of the Commission must be notified in the Official Gazette. Is there any 'notification' made to this effect in Official Gazette of Orissa till yet? The answer is again an emphatic no. Under the circumstances, the misleading stuff that is presently displayed on the Commission's website as regards the Officers and Employees is entirely the crooked concoction of Mr.Padhi, which is absolutely derogatory of both Sections 16 and 27 of RTI Act.
5) It is noteworthy here that Mr.Padhi is in the habit of projecting a larger than life image of himself, just as he has done in course of his defamation suit against this author and a co-activist, as 'a top rank bureaucrat of the country' having 'long experience as an IAS officer in the rank of Secretary of Government of India' and possessing 'moral and ethical values, legal acumen, knowledge, logic and reasons' and commanding 'high dignity and social reputation'. Were his self-portrayal genuine even by an iota, how is it that he nakedly misappropriated the clearly demarcated fief of the State Government over the personnel matters to himself and abused it through and through simply to fulfill his hidden agenda of looting public money on the one hand and administering a body blow to RTI Act in Orissa on the other?
6) The fact of the matter is that Mr.Padhi, so as to ensure that none of his corrupt, wicked and illegal misdeeds would ever leak out into the Government or public, could collect, in connivance with a corruptible circle of State bureaucracy, a large band of too-pliant yes-men of his choice and installed them in various posts as per his sweet will and arbitrarily fixed their salaries and conditions of service. In absence of any duly notified terms and conditions of service for the personnel so engaged, what Mr.Padhi did was to constantly drill into their too-receptive ears the Section 15(4) of the Act that famously says inter alia, "The general superintendence, direction and management of the affairs of the State Information Commission shall vest in the State Chief Information Commissioner". No wonder, they were quickly cajoled into a naive belief that Mr.D.N.Padhi was the unquestionable overlord of the Commission, his words as such the letter of law, and to disobey him tantamount to a sacrilege against the RTI Act.
7) Then Mr.Padhi made use of each of the Officers and Employees so appointed, as pawns in his nefarious game of looting the public exchequer, building up an over-glorified image for him, conspiring against the RTI activists critical of him and above all driving the RTI Act towards a silent demise. So much so that, he would arbitrarily engage his chosen subordinates in activities, which were not only dubious but even fell outside the job profile allotted to them by Mr.Padhi himself. For instance, going by the suo motu disclosure made on Commission's website, the job of the Registrar is to look after the 'Legal Matters', while that of the Secretary 'Administrative matters'. But the so-called Secretary Mr.Kasinath Sahoo misled the Court by swearing a false affidavit appended to the above mentioned defamation suit, that declared, "I am the plaintiff in this case and looking after the case affairs in the official capacity on behalf of the State Chief Information Commissioner". Why did the so-called Secretary so easily mouth a white lie before the Court about his job profile? Simply because, he is paid a sumptuous amount to his fill i.e. Rs.96, 391/- per month, the highest among all Officers, as gifted by his boss, of course, at the expense of the public exchequer.
8) Only a few people have any idea about the grotesquely elephantine size of the bureaucracy that Mr.Padhi erected around the Commission and the massive chunk of public money he squandered away for maintaining it. As of today, there are as many as 41 Officers and Employees in addition to 3 Commissioners. Among them the number of Officers dealing with legal matters alone is 5 besides Registrar and PA to Registrar, such as 1 Legal Facilitator, 2 Asst Law Officers, 1 Legal Scrutinizer-cum-Sheristadar and 1 Court Master. There are as many as 10 Data Processing Assistants and I Section Officer assisted by 4 Asst. Section Officers. Besides there are 3 Private Secretaries and 3 Personal Assistants, 3 Drivers, 7 Peons, 1 Sweeper-cum-Night Watchman and 1 Telephone Attendant. The total amount towards salaries of the Commission for the year 2010-11 is projected to be Rs.1 crore 40 lakh and 37 thousand. And the total estimates for the Commission's expenditure for the current year is Rs.3.05 crore.
9) Before coming to the moot question as to what is the net delivery made by such a huge army of personnel, it is worthwhile to ponder over whether such a mammoth bureaucracy is at all justified for a poor State like Orissa. Let's compare it with the Gujarat Commission. Gujarat, which is obviously by far a richer State than Orissa, has now 3 Information Commissioners including the Chief. Until March 2010 it managed with only one Chief State Information Commissioner. However, its secretariat has only 13 Officers and Employees, that is, less than one third of Orissa's 41. Among their staffs are only 1 Secretary and 1 Dy. Secretary, 1 Accounts Officer, 1 Cashier, 2 Section Officers and 3 Dy. Section Officers, 2 Stenos and 2 Clerks. And further mind boggling is the difference between how much monthly salary their Secretary is paid (only Rs.39,100/- per month) and how much Orissa's Secretary (Rs.96,391/- per month, that is about two and half times that of Gujarat). And the total expenditure for the Gujarat Commission as a whole for the year 2009-10 was only Rs.90 lakh and 65 thousand, that is less than 1/3rd of that of Orissa. Has Mr.Padhi ever mulled the question, if Gujarat, by far a richer and bigger State than Orissa could manage with so smaller a secretariat and at so lesser a scale of expenditure, why couldn't Orissa?
10) Now coming to the central question of performance, how did Orissa's Commission fare compared to that of Gujarat? Just for instance, in the month of February 2010, the one-man Gujarat Commission disposed of a total of 226 cases (Second Appeals 134 nos. + Complaints 92 nos.), whereas 3 member Orissa Commission disposed of only 116 cases (Second Appeals 16 nos.+ Complaints Nos.100) i.e. almost half the Gujarat numbers. Per Commissioner disposal of cases in Orissa stood at less than 39 only, whereas the single Gujarat Commissioner disposed of cases numbering 5.5 times that figure. In other words, one Gujarat Commissioner is equal to as many as 5.5 D.N.Padhis, though both were Retd. IAS Officers. And Orissa's case looks more puzzling, when we find that the single-Commissioner Gujarat could show 5.5 times the per Commissioner performance of Orissa, though given less than 1/3rd of Staffs and less than 1/3rd of expenditure of Orissa.
11) Those, who say that there shouldn't be any Retd. IAS Officer appointed as Information Commissioner, ought to remember that one of the 3 Commissioners of Orissa is a former NGO functionary, namely Sri Jagadanand, whose performance in terms of case disposal is however as pitiable as that of his boss Mr.Padhi; simply because, following the footsteps of Mr.Padhi he is more into the extra-jurisdictional game of winning media accolades than attending to his mandatory job of adjudicating appeals and complaints. It seems now very much plausible that keeping in view Orissa's smaller population and poorer exchequer, Orissa Commission should have only a single Commissioner, as tough as Mr.R.N.Das of Gujarat, assisted by a much smaller, but qualified manpower and provisioned by one fourth of its present budget, rather than several moron, self-seeking and corrupt D.N.Padhis.
12) One will get simply horrified if he or she juxtaposes the fabulous treasury and massive manpower that Mr.D.N.Padhi could manage illegally from the State Government, with the kind of damn stupidity he as Chief OSIC showed in respect of his mandatory function of adjudicating the appeals and complaints. Not to speak of the quality of justice in the decisions made by the Commissioners, their language is so ghastly sub-standard and erratic that one would simply feel ashamed of looking at them for a second time. With the Commissioners themselves writing bizarrely without any regard paid to grammar and the standing army of administrative personnel doing nothing to rectify them, quite many decisions marked by absurdity and nonsense are already posted on the Commission's website and have thereby turned the Commission into laughing stock before the whole nation. A few instances reproduced below are only a tip of the iceberg of the language mess that ushered in during the Padhi regime.
13) Instances of bizarre & erratic English by the Commissioners of Orissa-
a) CC No.439/2008 decided by SIC Jagdanand on 17.3.2009
"The State Commission is of the opinion that the information post led by the PIO has to considered as an important public interface point and should not be the made void at any point of time."
b) CC No.991/2007 decided by SIC Jagadanand on 20.3.2009 in Circuit Hearing, Sambalpur
This Case is being heard on two different occasion on 26.8.08 and 19.11.08….. The Complainant today confirmed that he has received all the information from the PIO which he could belatedly received only after intervention of the State Commission. .. … As both the cases are self-same. The case is covered with the case no-990/2007.
c) SA No.129/2007 by SIC (Prof.Radhamohan) on 4.1.2008
"2. Form A application dated 19.09.06 was received by the Public Authority on 26.09.06 and placed before the PIO on 13.10.06. This indicates that the administrative process is not RTI Act complaint. ……… 5. Since the first intimation was received by the Appellant within stipulated period of 30 days and also received complete information in the meanwhile there is no other point to pursue."
d) SA Appeal No.7/2006 decided on 30 May 2006 by Chief SIC D.N.Padhi & SIC Prof. Radhamohan
"The Respondent further submitted that supply of the information sought for will be hit by the provisions of Sec (h) of the Act." (Note- Is there a provision called Section (h) of the Act?- Chitta Behera)
14) Not only the bizarre language, but also a bizarre scale of ignorance about the RTI Act permeated the decisions of Mr.Padhi all through. For instance, without quoting any particular provision from the Act or Rules, he would arbitrarily issue such absurd statements in his decisions and utterances as, 'Complaints around Section-4 don't come under adjudicatory purview of Information Commission', 'Onus of proof lies on the Complainant', 'As per RTI Act and Orissa RTI Rules 2005, BPL persons are exempted only from application fees, not from the fees towards cost of information', 'As per Rule 9(2) of Orissa IC (Appeal Procedure) Rules 2006 the absence in the hearing of the Complainant who was summoned by speed-post is un-condonable', 'With the defaulter PIO absconding from the office, the case is closed, since no penalty against a defaulter PIO can be imposed without giving him an opportunity of hearing as required under Section-20(1) of the Act' and the like. The Annual Reports authored by Mr.Padhi, already laid in the State legislatures as per Section 25 did also contain profound lies and hyperboles such as 'Orissa enacted Right to Information Act 2002' and '38,800 RTI applications were submitted in course of 10-day long Soochana Shibirs organised by the Commission during November 2006'. And he had trained his co-commissioners and army of clerics and super clerics such that no body would ever object to whatever he decides or writes or verbalizes.
15) Given the rank idiocy of Mr.Padhi coupled with his maniac craze for self-aggrandizement and self-glorification, his co-commissioners and subordinate officials, instead of playing any correctional role, danced to his tune that was comical and hypocritical at one go. Not only did they turn themselves into his glorified Chamchas, but also started becoming mini-Padhis themselves- writing in a rubbish language, dubious deals with the guilty PIOs, misbehaving with complainants, naked identification with the corporate sector, clandestine rapport with corrupt bureaucrats, misappropriating the public funds in the name of awareness generation, lobbying for awards, running after media publicity and the like. The most glaring instance of how the whole Commission turned into a body of liars, crooks and hypocrites like Mr.Padhi came to the fore when a concocted Press Release was issued by the Commission to all print and electronic media claiming that Mr.Padhi had been nominated as the best Information Commissioner of the country and Orissa as one of the best five by the National RTI Awards Committee.
16) Needless to say, it is the entire secretariat of Commission steeped as they were in the culture of sycophancy under the irresistible temptation of power and pelf, by their own acts of omission and commission made a buffoon out of Mr.Padhi himelf. It is they who acquiesced and assisted in display of family album of Mr.Padhi on Commission's website, circulation of false pres release about the highest RTI award to Mr.Padhi and Orissa Commission, dissemination of false figures in Annual Reports, mention of the word 'Hon'ble' twice in the body of the decision, use of rubbish language, pronouncements going patently against letter and spirit of RTI Act, anti-BPL tirades, and above all hounding of intellectual critics by way of defamation suits against them and so on and so forth.
17) Of course Mr.Padhi along with his cohort of co-commissioners and subordinate officers has succeeded to a great extent in achieving one of their hidden agenda i.e. how to give a silent and decent burial to the nascent RTI Act 2005 in the land of Orissa before it could shoot off into leaves and branches. They have achieved this by deliberately publishing and circulating grossly mistranslated texts of the Act and misleading FAQ in Oriya along with spinning out orally arbitrary interpretations of the Act and Rules abjectly contrary to the actual position.
18) Under the circumstances, to save RTI and to save the Commission in Orissa from further sliding down along the road to disaster, what is required first of all, is to purge the Commission of the entire army of un-notified, toxic personnel illegally inducted by Mr.D.N.Padhi in his capacity as Chief OSIC during last 5 years, and alongside of it, an approximate amount of Rs.5 crore that Mr.Padhi abusing his office and authority could manage to grab from the State exchequer in this period on account of salary and allowances against the un-notified personnel must be recovered from him at the earliest. This is all the more required to ensure that no Commissioner ever dares in future to flout the letter and spirit of RTI Act, or indulge in all sorts of corrupt and foul means for self-serving ends or partakes a cold-blooded conspiracy in tandem with vested interests of the State to root out the nascent RTI Act not yet grounded in the soil of Orissa.
Chitta Behera
Cuttack, Dt 21.11.2010
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