[Attachment(s) from Chitta Behera included below]
Six years on, RTI in Orissa still staggering in a counter-productive mode
(Attached Oriya write-ups in WORD and PDF)
Here is an overview of state of RTI in Orissa, an endeavor to capture in a nutshell the very direction in which the four key players such as State Government, Information Commission, Competent Authorities (Speaker Orissa Legislative Assembly and Chief Justice Orissa High Court) and above all Office of Governor have been moving or have stopped moving in respect of their statutory role in giving effect to various provisions of RTI Act 2005. The quintessential analysis, corroborated by facts, has led the author to conclude with certitude that each such player has not only strayed away from the assigned trajectory of statutory powers and functions, but also acted in a manner contrary to the letter and spirit of the Act. While competent authorities like Speaker OLA and Governor Orissa have each failed squarely to come up with a separate set of Rules for their respective domains, which they were required to do by 12th of October 2005, the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court, another competent authority notified certain Rules in 2006 which is out and out ultra vires the parent Act. The Orissa RTI Rules 2005 which was framed and notified in time by the State Government is however the single greatest marauder of RTI Act, since each of its stipulations runs diametrically opposite to the letter and spirit of the Act. The Orissa Information Commission which by virtue of the powers conferred on it under Section 25(5) could have set aright the faulty RTI regime thrust by the Government and competent authorities, did ironically emerge as the villain of the piece, making it sure that not a single information about corruption by the politicians or bureaucrats of the state ever slips off by any stroke of RTI. In order to ensure that the BPL people never avail the exemption of fees allowed under Section 7(5) of the Act, the Commissioners of Orissa made an arbitrary interpretation of the Act and succeeded also in keeping this critical segment of population from the orbit of the historic law altogether. Leaving their statutory duty of adjudicating the complaints and appeals in the lurch, the Information Commissioners (Mr.Padhi along with Prof Radhamohan) were found for most part of their tenure in reveling in the glare and glow of so-called awareness campaign at a huge cost of Rs.3 crore 25 lakh, which the then Chief Information Commissioner Mr.D.N.Padhi could garner clandestinely from the State exchequer, contrary to the mandate of the principal Act. Mr.Padhi and Mr.Jagadanand were also caught red-handed in the public domain for their outrageous acts of moral turpitude, when they in their nefarious bid of self-glorification spread a blatant lie through an infamous press release on 28.10.2009 that Mr.Arvind Kejuriwala had congratulated both of them for the outstanding scores won by Mr.Padhi and Orissa Information Commission in the National RTI Awards. The said press release brought indelible shame to the entire Orissa when Mr.Kejuriwala denied outright the veracity of the claim so made by the Commissioners duo. To cap it all, when the civil society members grew more and more agitated against the corrupt and vainglorious misdeeds of Mr.Padhi and other Commissioners, Mr. Padhi in order to stamp out any manner of displeasing voice from the civil society against his unwarranted commissions and omissions, went to the extent of slamming a defamation suit to the tune of Rs.1 lakh against two of his most vocal critics and that too shortly before his retirement. Strangely enough, the same suit is now being pursued by his successor Mr.Tarun Kanti Mishra without any rhyme or reason in the concerned court of law at the expense of the state exchequer. In the whole game of RTI baiting in Orissa, the most worrisome fact however remains to be the awkward and inexplicable mum maintained by the Office of Governor, who as the disciplinary authority has utterly failed to address even for once the series of complaints lodged under Section 17 against the Commissioners on the alleged grounds of inefficiency, misappropriation and moral turpitude. As a net fall-out, an effete and inert Raj Bhavan signals the corrupt and inefficient Commissioners to persist shamelessly in their indefensible array of counter-productive acts of omission and commission which are also ultra vires the parent Act. Under the curcumstances, Orissa's RTI malaise is in need of a radical cure, which has to be applied on all problematic fronts at a time- untamed competent authorities like Speaker of Assembly and Chief Justice of High Court, objectionable Orissa RTI Rules 2005, malfunctioning Orissa Information Commission and above all an unresponsive Raj Bhavan.
Chitta Behera, Cuttack
15 October 2011
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Attachment(s) from Chitta Behera
2 of 2 File(s)
MARKETPLACE
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