You are barking up the wrong tree.
PS: Only dogs bark.
To save one round of email exchange
1) Madam President is a rubber stamp (or so Mr. Ornob Goswami of Times
Now.TV said on national TV last night. Actually .he also said she was
a "pupp..." but stopped himself just in time).
2) Section 14 is an enabling provision not a directory one and has to
be read alongwith 12 and 13,
3) Your petition's grounds do not make out a strong case for
application of section 14..
and so on..
Sarbajit
On 3/6/12, Sandeep gupta <drsandgupta@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear members
> With active and kind help from Sh Surinderpal advocate and RTI
> activist from Ludhiana and member of lawyers for social action, I have
> been able to draft a complaint against Mrs Sushma Singh, central
> Information commissioner for misusing her office. The complaint is
> enclosed herewith:
> the members are requested to give in their inputs please.
> I hereby express my gratitude to Sh Surinderpal JI for his selfless help.
> regards
> sandeep
>
> Date: 07.03.2012
>
> To
> The Honourable President of India,
> Rashtrapati Bhawan,
> New Delhi
>
>
> Petition u/s 14 of the RTI Act, 2005,
>
> To get the conduct of Mrs. Sushma Singh IC, CIC, New Delhi, inquired
> by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, in misusing powers and
> exceeding authority as IC, and thus, behaving in a manner unbecoming
> of an IC, and remove her from post immediately
>
> and
>
> To suspend Mrs. Sushma Singh from office and prohibit her from
> attending office during pendency, against her, of inquiry by the
> Hon'ble Supreme Court
>
> Your Excellency,
> I hereby draw your kind attention to the conduct of Mrs. Sushma Singh,
> IC, CIC, New Delhi:
> 1. Mrs Singh has not heard majority of complaints filed u/s 18 of the
> RTI Act since January 2011. Instead, majority of the complaints filed
> by the complainants against the CPIOs for not replying their RTI
> applications have been remanded back to the CPIOs/appellate
> authorities concerned with direction to the latter to send reply to
> the complainant's RTI application. In many other cases, the
> complainants have either been directed to file the First Appeal (FA)
> in case they are not satisfied with the response or supply of
> information by the CPIOs concerned. If a complainant is not satisfied
> with the orders of the First Appellate Authority (FAA), then only he
> should approach the Commission with fresh second appeal. Some of these
> complaints are as below:
> Sl. No. Case No. Title of the complaint Date of remanding back
> 1. CIC/SS/C/2010/000653 Sh PK Mittal vs. PIO and addl DCP (Delhi) 10.01.2011
> 2. CIC/SS/C/2010/000651 Sh Badri Nath vs. PIO and Addl DCP North
> (Delhi Police) 11.01.2011
> 3. CIC/AT/C/2010/1033/SS Shri S.K. Singal vs Central Coalfields
> Ltd. 13.01.2011
> 4. CIC/AT/C/2010/1030/SS Shri Rednam Deepak vs. Visakhapatnam Port
> Trust 13.01.2011
> 5. CIC/AT/C/2010/1261/SS Smt. Kumud Gurav vs. Ministry of Finance,
> Deptt. of Revenue 15.02.2011
> 6. CIC/AT/C/2010/1235/SS Shri Gyanchand Jain vs. O/O Commissioner of
> Customs, Mumbai 17.02.2011
> 7. CIC/SS/C/2011/000047 Mr. K. Manickaraj vs, Ministry of Law &
> Justice, New Delhi. 31.03.2011
> 8. CIC/SS/C/2011/000048 Shri Avinash Kumar vs. Airport Authority of
> India 13.04.2011
> 9. CIC/SS/C/2010/000650 Shri K.S. Ganabady Soupramaniane vs. Dte. of
> School Education, Puducherry 11.01.2011
> 10. CIC/AT/C/2010/987/SS Shri Nagender Lal Das vs Central Coalfields
> Ltd. 14.01.2011
> 11. CIC/AT/C/2010/1074/SS Shri Bharat Nandan Prasad vs Bharat Coking
> Coal Ltd. 17.01.2011
> 12. CIC/SS/C/2011/000018 Shri Pradeep Tiwari vs. M/o Social Justice &
> Empowerment 14.02.2011
> 13. CIC/SS/C/2011/000017 Shri Rajeev T. Singh vs. Kandla Port
> Trust 14.02.2011
> 14 CIC/SS/C/2011/000067 Shri V. Sathyaseelan vs. Ministry of Home
> Affairs 28.04.2011
>
> Copies of orders are enclosed.
> 2. A large number of second appeals filed by the appellants on FAA's
> failure to pass order on their First Appeal in stipulated time of one
> month, was decided by the 'learned' IC. Instead, she converted these
> Second Appeals into First Appeals and remanded these back to the FAAs
> concerned to decide the same, with directions to the appellants to
> compulsorily wait for FAA's decision. She allowed the appellant to
> approach the Commission with second appeal only in the situation of
> dissatisfaction with FAA's order on first appeal. Some of these cases
> are as below:
>
> Sl. No. Case No. Title of the appeal Date of remanding back
> 1 CIC/AT/C/2010/1041/SS Shri B Bandyopadhyay vs. Commissioner of
> Customs, Kolkata 14.01.2011
> 2 CIC/AT/C/2010/1243/SS Shri Sudershan Kumar vs, Ministry of Road
> Transport & Highways 14.02.2011
> 3 CIC/SS/A/2011/901808 Dr. Praveen Thakan vs Agricultural Services
> Recruitment Board 08.02.2012
> 4 CIC/SS/A/2011/002033 D. V. Singh vs. Dredging Corporation of India
> Ltd. 02.02.2012
> 5 CIC/SS/A/2011/002036 U. Panduranga Rao vs Hindustan Shipyard
> Ltd 02.02.2012
> 6 CIC/SS/A/2011/002039 Chandi Ram vs FCI 16.02.2012
> 7 CIC/SS/A/2011/002077 G.S. Saluja vs Rashtriya Chemicals &
> Fertilizers Ltd 15.02.2012
> 8 CIC/SS/A/2011/002113 Shatrunjay Tripathy vs Petroleum & Explosives
> Safety Orgn 14.02.2012
> 9 CIC/SS/A/2011/002080 G. K. Goyal vs BHEL 13.02.2012
> 10 CIC/SS/A/2011/001990 DC Mishra vs NBPGR 13.02.2012
>
> Copies of orders are enclosed.
>
> 3. Mrs Sushma Singh often rejects the appeals by referring to the term
> "voluminous information" in her judgements. Using this word, she
> orders the public authority concerned to allow inspection of records
> to the appellant for specific number of hours and for allowing
> photocopies of some specified number of pages only and that also on
> payment of fee. Some of these cases are as below:
> Sl. No. Case No. Title of the appeal Date of order
> 1 CIC/SS/A/2011/001273 Mr. Mahendra Agarwal vs NTPC Ltd., New Delhi 2.2.12
> 2 CIC/SS/A/2010/00079 Sh. Kirit Shah vs Airport Authority of India, 29.09.10
> 3 CIC/SS/A/2010/000663 Sh Jagvinder Singh Bisht vs ASRB 7.6.10
> 4 CIC/SS/A/2011/000128 Shri Chetan Kothari vs Office of the Official
> Liquidator, High Court, Mumbai 9.6.11
> 5 CIC/SS/A/2010/000255 Shri Dilip Kumar Roy vs Ministry of Agriculture
> and Cooperation, New Delhi. 29.11.10
> Copies of some orders are enclosed herewith.
>
> It is worth mentioning here that I am also personally aggrieved by
> Mrs. Sushma Singh in some of my cases i.e. Case No.
> CIC/SS/A/2011/901802, 901804, 901807, 901809, 901811, 901812, 901813 &
> 901830 orders dated 02.03.2012 titled Sandeep Kumar Gupta vs.
> Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board. She clubbed all these cases
> together and then dubbed the information as voluminous. She
> arbitrarily gave discretion to the appellate authority to decide the
> reasonability of number of documents to be supplied. The copy of the
> order is enclosed.
> In Case No. CIC/SS/A/2011/001731 order dated 24.2.12 (copy enclosed)
> citing information as voluminous she directed the appellants to file
> fresh applications.
> 4. She directed the appellants to pay additional fee for getting
> information though the mandatory period of 30 days had already
> expired. Some of the cases are as under
>
> Sl. No. Case No. Title of the appeal Date of disposal
> 1 CIC/SS/A/2011/001624 Shri Tej Bahadur Singh vs South Eastern
> Coalfields Ltd 01.02.2012
> 2 CIC/SM /A/2010/001380/SS Vijendra singh vs Bank of Baroda,
> Gujarat 10.05.2011
> 3 CIC/SS/A/2010/001223 Sh CL Suman vs IVRI, UP 04.05.2011
> 4 CIC/SS/A/2011/000435 Mr. Anshuman Gargesh vs Airports Authority of
> India, New Delhi 22.12.2011
> 5 CIC/SS/A/2011/000802 Prof. Suresh Moon vs Indian Institute of Mines
> 13.01.2012
>
> 5. Dismissal of appeals without giving any opportunity to the
> appellants: Mrs Sushma Singh dismissed a large number of appeals
> without hearing the appellants.
> Copies of some of her orders are enclosed herewith:
> Sl. No. Case No. Title of the appeal Date of disposal
> 1 CIC/SS/A/2011/001446/SS Shri Rajinder Singh Mankotia vs, Sashastra
> Seema Bal 16.02.2012
> 2 CIC/SS/A/2011/001318 Shri Mahendra Singh vs CISF 24.02.2012
> 3 CIC/SS/A/2011/000042 Shri V.D. Sharma vs CRPF 24.02.2012
> 4 CIC/SS/A/2011/001846 Shri Ashok Kumar vs CRPF 24.02.2012
> 5 CIC/SS/A/2011/001868 Mr. Taranath Pandey vs Intelligence Bureau,
> Ministry of Home Affairs 16.02.2012
>
> It is stunning that Mrs. Sushma is least bothered to respect the legal
> provisions or court rulings even, while passing ridiculous, unlawful
> and unjustified orders. Some of these provisions and rulings are as
> below:
>
> a. The preamble of the RTI Act aims at setting out the practical
> regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to
> information under the control of public authorities, in order to
> promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public
> authority;
>
> b. The RTI Act nowhere empowers an IC to convert the complaint u/s 18
> of the RTI Act into an application and remand it back to same PIO
> against whom the complaint has been filed.
>
> Section 18 (1)(b) of the RTI Act clearly devolves a duty on the
> Information Commission to receive and enquire into the complaints from
> any persons. This section mandates that the Information Commission is
> under legal obligation to receive and inquire into the complaints
> received by it. It means, the Commission has no option to refuse the
> complaints or to inquire these complaints. The RTI Act nowhere
> empowers the IC to act arbitrarily and remand the complaint back to
> the CPIO for reply to the RTI application or force the complainant to
> compulsorily fulfil the condition of filing First Appeal before the
> First Appellate Authority before approaching the Commission with
> complaint. The provision is reproduced here for your ready reference:
> "18 (1) (a) who has been unable to submit a request to a CPIO either
> by reason that no such officer has been appointed under this Act, or
> because the CAPIO has refused to accept his or her application for
> information or appeal under this Act for forwarding the same to the
> CPIO or senior officer specified in sub-section (1) of section 19 or
> the CIC;
> (b) who has been refused access to any information requested under this Act;
> (c) who has not been given a response to a request for information or
> access to information within the time limit specified under this Act;
> (d) who has been required to pay an amount of fee which he or she
> considers unreasonable;
> (e) who believes that he or she has been given incomplete, misleading
> or false information under this Act; and
> (f) in respect of any other matter relating to requesting or obtaining
> access to records under this Act.".
>
> c. Similarly, an IC has no authority to remand back the Second Appeal
> to the First Appellate Authority who had chosen not to decide the
> First Appeal and aggrieved with whom the Appellant has approached the
> Commission with second appeal.
>
> It is a stark reality that an applicant/appellant approaches the
> Commission only after suffering disappointment at the hands of CPIO
> who either did not respond within a month of the application, or
> denied the information or supplied deficient information, and the FAA
> who has either not decided the FA within one month or the appellant is
> not satisfied with the decision.
>
> d. The Act further nowhere empowers an IC to compel inspection,
> determine inspection time or supply of specified number of documents,
> when the Act and Rules amply provide the other way. Mrs. Sushma Singh
> is doing all this with impunity.
> e. Further, the RTI Act nowhere prohibits supply of information on
> the ground of it being 'voluminous', especially when the applicant is
> ready to pay its cost prescribed by the rules made in this respect,
> provided the information is offered in stipulated time u/s 7(1) of the
> Act. It is only section 7(9) of the Act that puts slight restriction
> pertaining to the 'format' not to 'content' of the information sought,
> that too, only when it is likely to disproportionately divert the
> resources of the Public Authority concerned or is detrimental to
> preservation of record. Section 7(9) of the Act is reproduced below
> for your ready reference:
> "7(9) An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which
> it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources
> of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or
> preservation of the record in question.".
>
> f. In WA No. 2100 of 2007 decided by the Kerala High court on 20
> September 2007, the Hon'ble court held:
> "In any event, when the Act does not exempt voluminous information
> from disclosure, the petitioner cannot deny such information on that
> ground. In the above circumstances, I do not find any merit in this
> contention also"
> g. Section 7(6) of the Act is reproduced below for your ready reference:
> Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (5), the person making
> request for the information shall be provided the information free of
> charge where a public authority fails to comply with the time limits
> specified in sub-section (1).
> h. In WP(C).No. 6532 of 2006(C) decided by the Kerala High court on
> 30 August 2010, it is clearly stated as under:
> "The difficulties a public authority may encounter in the matter of
> supply of information are no grounds to deny the information, if that
> information is available and not exempted from disclosure. Whatever be
> the difficulties, unless the information is exempt from disclosure,
> the public authority is bound to disclose the same. The facts that the
> information is voluminous, if all candidates apply for the information
> with the available infrastructure it may not be possible to cope up
> with the request, the authority will have to depute additional
> manpower to collect and supply the information etc. are not reasons
> available to the public authority to deny information to a citizen who
> applies for the same. The public authority can only insist on
> reasonable fees for supply of the information as per rules prescribed
> for the same. As such, the flood gate theory sought to be pressed into
> service by the Standing Counsel for the Public Service Commission is
> not a defence against supply of information under the Right to
> Information Act".
>
> i. In WP(C).No. 33718 of 2010(L), the Hon'ble Kerala High Court on 09
> March 2011, held:
> "Another plea of PSC is nothing but a managerial issue. It is pointed
> out that the PSC has to incur the huge expenses and administrative
> difficulties, including the deployment of staff exclusively to deal
> with such requests and this would result in undue hardship and
> clogging of its administrative setup. Once a piece of law is in place,
> inconvenience is no excuse to exclude adherence to it. The bounden has
> to obey and abide by it. This plea of PSC also does not commend
> acceptance".
>
> j. The Hon'ble Apex court in Civil Appeal No. 7571 of 2011 decided on
> 2 September 2011 has held:
> "Public authorities should realize that in an era of transparency,
> previous practices of unwarranted secrecy have no longer a place.
> Accountability and prevention of corruption is possible only through
> transparency. Attaining transparency no doubt would involve additional
> work with reference to maintaining records and furnishing information.
> Parliament has enacted the RTI Act providing access to information,
> after great debate and deliberations by the Civil Society and the
> Parliament. In its wisdom, the Parliament has chosen to exempt only
> certain categories of information from disclosure and certain
> organizations from the applicability of the Act. As the examining
> bodies have not been exempted, and as the examination processes of
> examining bodies have not been exempted, the examining bodies will
> have to gear themselves to comply with the provisions of the RTI Act.
> Additional workload is not a defence. If there are practical
> insurmountable difficulties, it is open to the examining bodies to
> bring them to the notice of the government for consideration so that
> any changes to the Act can be deliberated upon. Be that as it may"
> The above facts show that Mrs. Sushma Singh is the self-styled king in
> her office. She is passing orders in blatant violation of law and
> court rulings. She is worried more about the PIOs and Public
> authorities, than the information seekers. She has created her own
> self-made laws. She has failed to realise that responsibility of
> proper implementation and promotion of the transparency laws is on the
> Information Commissions, who are the watch dogs for this purpose. Mrs.
> Sushma Singh is least bothered about the RTI Act, for whose
> implementation she is heavily paid from public exchequer. An
> information Commissioner ought to be the saviour of the Act not its
> killer as Mrs. Sushma Singh is. In none of the complaints entrusted to
> her Bench, has the 'learned' IC issued notice to the respondent CPIO,
> perhaps due to her attachment for them owing to her bureaucratic
> background. In fact, she is doing the duty of killing the RTI Act for
> the reasons best known to her only.
>
> Keeping in view the above facts and attitude of Mrs. Sushma Singh, I
> humbly pray your goodself To get the conduct of Mrs. Sushma Singh IC,
> CIC, New Delhi, inquired by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, in
> misusing powers and exceeding authority as IC, and thus, behaving in a
> manner unbecoming of an IC, and remove her from post immediately
>
> I further pray you to suspend Mrs. Singh from office and prohibit her
> from attending office during pendency, against her, of inquiry.
>
> I humbly pray for granting me opportunity of personal hearing in any
> proceeding in this respect.
>
> A word of acknowledgement shall be appreciated. .
> Hoping some tangible action in the interest of the Act and the RTI users.
>
> With thanks,
> Yours Faithfully,
>
> (Dr. Sandeep Kumar Gupta
> 1778, Sector 14, Hisar-125001, INDIA
> Phone: 91-99929-31181
>
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