Wednesday, November 23, 2011

[HumJanenge] Suggestions for making Draft “Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011” more Citizen-friendly

Dear friends

Please  find  below  the suggestions on "Draft Citizens Grievance Redress Bill-2011"  given  to  the Department of  Administrative Reforms and  Public Grievances, Govt. of India.

With regards

Pradip Pradhan  


To

The Secretary

Dept of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances,

Government of India

New Delhi

 

Sub- Suggestions for making Draft "Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011" more Citizen-friendly

 

Sir,

 

Greetings from "Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan"

 

"Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan" is a State level Network of Civil Society Groups and RTI Activists spearheading the campaign for effective implementation of RTI Act in the state of Orissa.  

 We came across the Draft Bill on "Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011" hosted on the website of  your Department along with an open invitation for   seeking suggestions from the public on  the said Draft Bill by 23.11.2011.

 First of all, we welcome this move of Central Govt. for bringing  such a long-awaited  bill i.e., "Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011" for  supplying specified goods  and   rendering   services  to the people in a time bound manner.  The  proposed law  has its  relevance  in view of the fact that   the  common people of the country  are  greatly harassed  by the  bureaucracy  in their pursuit of  accessing their entitlements from the  Govt. Even the grievances of public nature are neither attended nor responded to by the  officers  for months on end.   The apathetic and indifferent attitude of the administration in  addressing the grievances of the people has left the people frustrated and hopeless.

 However, while going through the  salient features of the Draft Bill, we came across  a lot of anomalies, lacunas and self-contradictory provisions  which may defeat the very basic purposes of the proposed law. We  feel  it a privilege to bring to your kind notice the  following  shortcomings in the draft bill   for  your kind  consideration in the interest of making it more citizen-friendly.

 1. The nomenclature of the Draft Bill as "Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011" may be withdrawn and be renamed as "Right to Grievance Redress Bill 2011". Because, we have seen in Orissa that the State Govt. has misused  the word " Citizen"  while  implementation the RTI Act.  As you might know, Orissa RTI Rules-2005 framed by the State Government under Section 27 of the RTI Act has made a provision to compel the applicants  for producing proof of Citizenship in the shape of Voter ID card or Passport along with    the application for information.  As a result, a person below the age of  18 years, who is not entitled to a Voter ID Card   or may not possess a passport in the country is not able to apply for information under the Act. Thus Orissa RTI Rules has deprived a vast bulk of young population, who are very much citizens of the country, of their legitimate right to access information under the Act. In view of such a negative experience, the nomenclature or the text of the bill should avoid the sensitive word 'citizen'.

 2. Section  11 (3)  of the  Draft  Bill vests certain powers of a civil court to the concerned 'Head of the Department of Public Authority' to enable it to exercise its functions as an
appellate authority.   At the same time,   Section 11 (4) of the Draft bill  says  the HoD "shall not be bound by the procedure laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 but shall be guided by
the principles of natural justice". Both these  sections are  self-contradictory  and confusing Then again, Section 11(4)  gives  power  to HOD to frame and allow its own procedure  of adjudication, which is not desirable either, because millions of diverse and inchoate procedures will proliferate throughout the country making the situation too confusing and complicated for the ordinary members of the public. Thus, there should be well laid, easy and uniform procedures of adjudication of complaints and appeals as a part of the Bill itself in respect of appeal proceedings at all levels, HoD, State Commission and Central Commission. 

 3. In the whole Draft, there is no provision for compensation to the complainants, who might have suffered loss or detriment owing to their deprivation of time-bound delivery of good or service applied for. The provision of  compensation  for  the  aggrieved   complainants  is  required to be there because he or she  might have  suffered  a lot  financially, physically or psychologically in pursuit of availing the entitlement from the concerned Public Authority.  Realizing the importance of Compensation, the RTI Act  in its Section 19 (8-b) has enjoined upon the Information Commissioners to award compensation to the aggrieved complainants. So the Draft Bill should have a similar provision for compensating the loss or detriment the Complainant might have suffered.

 4. Another great shortcoming noticed In the Draft Bill is the absence of any time limit  for  disposal of the complaints of general nature (not being immediate and urgent in nature)  lodged before the   State  Grievance Redressal Commission  and Central Grievance Redressal Commission. Needless to say, the decision of such Commissions arrived at following the disposal  of cases is a kind of service that  the Commissions  provide to the public. As the basic goal of the draft bill is to ensure time bound delivery of service by each  public authority, the Commissions, being the public authorities themselves should also provide their services including the decision on a complaint in a time bound manner. In absence of a specified time limit, the complainants will have to wait for an indefinite period for getting justice from the Commissions, and as a result, the  basic purpose of the proposed law will  no doubt get defeated, and the  public will continue to suffer harassment harassed by the negligent and corrupt public servants complained against. In corroboration of this anxiety we like to cite  the example  of State Information Commission Orissa which takes  even three to four years  to  dispose of a complaint or appeal. Having experienced the inordinately long delay in getting their complaints redressed by the Commission, the RTI users in Orissa   are feeling frustrated  and  losing their faith  in  RTI Act as a tool for bringing transparency and accountability in the system of governance in the  State. So, the time limit  for disposal of the complaints and appeals by the State and Central Commissions needs to be specified in the proposed draft law at any rate.

 5. Section 50  of the Draft Bill  says "the provisions of this Act are in addition to and not in derogation of, any other law for the time being in force."  It needs  to be  withdrawn, because  every Public Authority in order to escape its obligation to render time-bound delivery of service shall take the excuse of several existing laws and bye-laws, where there may not be any provision of time limit at all and/or where there may not be any provision of penalty imposable against the non-compliance of time-bound delivery of service. So we suggest  that  there should be a provision for  overriding  effect  of the proposed law  vis-à-vis any other law or instrumentality of the state,  just like Section 22 of of RTI Act.

 

6. There  is no mention in the Draft Bill of the exact  amount of penalty  to be imposed  on the    Grievance Redressal Officer proved guilty. As a result, the HoD or Commissions State or Central may in their discretion  refrain from imposing any penalty or may impose a penalty of too paltry an amount against a default involving big money. Considering the huge amount of money that would be involved around the goods and services to be delivered under the proposed law, there should be the provision for a hepty amount of monetary penalty against the guilty public servants, at least heavier that the one made in RTI Act 2005.

 7.The Sections 23 and 39 of the draft bill vest penal powers to the State and Central Commissions exercisable against any person including an appellant on the perceived grounds of 'intentional
insult or interruption' (Section 228 of IPC) or 'procedure in certain cases of contempt' (Section 345 of CrPC 1973) or treatment of the case as the one based upon a police report (Section 346 of CrPC 1973). These provisions shall frighten away the common man so much that none shall dare to approach the Commissions for seeking justice to their complaints. These Sections should stand deleted completely from the draft bill.

 8. The  Draft Bill has  entrusted the powers  to  the  concerned State and Central Governments    for making Rules.  The experience of leaving the Rule-making powers  to the    the State Governments has become very counter-productive.  For example,  in the name of implementing the RTI Act in the State, the  Orissa  Govt.  framed Orissa RTI Rules-2005, most provisions of which are not only ultra vires the parent Act, but also absurd and anti-people such as compulsory use of Form-A for application, submission  of proof of citizenship, imposition of form and fees for making appeal, deficient letter of intimation (Form-B), letter of rejection on arbitrary grounds (Form-C), imposition of difficult modes of payment,  and above all collection of cost of information from the BPL persons. So there is every possibility of the State Government diluting and denying the letter and spirit of the proposed law through exercising of Rule-making power, if entrusted to them. It is suggested that like Forest Rights  Act 2006, the Central Govt.  should  frame the Rules for implementing the provisions of the Act, and leave to the State Government the only power to make notification of various authorities required to be installed as per the Act and Rules made by the Centre

We  hope  the  Central Govt. will take  our   suggestions into account  while shaping   the final Bill  to be tabled in the Parliament.

 

Thanking you

Yours sincerely

Pradip Pradhan

State Convener

Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan

MIG-316, Sailashree Vihar

C.S.Pur, Bhubaneswar, Orissa

 E-mail- odishasochanaadhikar@gmail.com 

Date-23.11.2011

 

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