Highest Number of cases is disposed without hearing by Mr. Jagadanand Mohanty, State Information Commissioner, Odisha , exposed through RTI
Dear friends
On dated 27.6.12, Mr. Sanjeeb Satapathy, RTI Activist of Kalahandi district had submitted RTI Application to the PIO to get information about number of cases disposed by Information Commissioners in the state without hearing within the period of January 2011 to June'2012. On dated 25.7.12, the PIO provided the following information.
Name of Information Commissioner | No. of cases disposed without hearing |
| Mr. Tarun Kanti Mishra, State Chief Information Commissioner | 1914 |
| Mr. Jagadanand, State Information Commissioner | 1980 |
| Mr. Pramod Kumar Mohanty, State Information Commissioner | 820 |
Under Sections 18, 19 and 20 of RTI Act, the Information Commission has been empowered to receive, hear, enquire and dispose the Complaints and Second Appeals and also to impose penalty on defaulting PIOs as and where required. Needless to say, the hearing of the cases is crucial in the entire process of disposal of a case, simply for the reason that it gives an opportunity of hearing to the concerned PIO, on whom lies the burden of proof as to whether he acted diligently to provide the requested information to the applicant. It is also important because the complainant/petitioner might raise a slew of critical issues on account of which the RTI users like him were deprived of access to information sought for, and which the Commission as per Section 19(8) should address to for a better administration of RTI regime in the concerned public authority in future.
From above information obtained through RTI, it is seen that Odisha Information Commission has been unilaterally disposing a large bulk of the cases without holding any hearing on them. Mr. Jagadanand has scored top among other commissioners in respect of unilaterally and arbitrarily disposing the cases.
Let us examine how and why the Information Commissioners have adopted such nefarious practice to dispose the cases. It is seen that the Information Commissioners are facing serious public criticism for low disposal of cases which attributes to their inefficiency and lack of expertise to deal the cases. In order to show their efficiency of disposing large number of cases in public domain, the Commission has adopted this strategy .
The office of the Commission has designed an unique system to quickly dispose the cases at the stoke of pen. The staff of all three Information Commissioners have developed a format in their computers . In format, they make cut and paste of Complaint case number, date and name of the Public authority and write the text which is very common in all cases that " it is observed that the Complainant did not approach the First Appellate Authority for appropriate decision in the matter. In order to avoid multiple proceedings under section 18 and 19 of the RTI Act. The Commission decided to treat this complaint as a First appeal and to remand this appeal to the first appellate authority who is directed to dispose of the appeal of complainant within 30 days from the date of the receipt of this decision under intimation to the Registrar, Odisha Information Commission. If the Complainant is not satisfied with the orders of the first appellate authority, he is free to file a second appeal before the Commission under section 19(3) of the RTI Act." The case is disposed accordingly. The Information Commissioners do not take any pain to dispose the cases except putting their signature on the order sheet. This is the most simplest and surest method ever invented by any Commissioner of the world to dispose large volume of the cases.
What is the devastating outcome ?
In large number of cases ( such as for instance CC No- 4165/2011 and CC No.- 2/2011) the 1st Appellate Authorities are neither hearing nor disposing the cases. In fact, the cases unilaterally disposed by the Commission are old ones which require immediate hearing and immediate delivery of information to the complainants and penalty against the defaulter PIOs. As the Commission doesn't enforce actual compliance in terms of delivery of information to the complainants and no penalty is imposed on erring PIOs for their failure to provide the information, the net result is widespread discontentment and anger created among the deprived citizens. In a situation where the Complainant has at long last been ditched by the Commission, he simply feels hopeless about approaching the Commission again in the manner of filing a complaint or second appeal. There is only a burning anger and frustration left in them. It has been gathered from the sources close to the complainants that huge numbers of cases disposed unilaterally by the Commission has not resulted in any delivery of information the complainants had asked for but were unduly refused. Though some complainants have filed again the previous cases to the Commission, the latter is yet to begin deciding them.
The above procedure adopted by the Commission has encouraged the PIOs to disregard the RTI Act altogether. They are showing a careless attitude to the RTI applications, being overconfident that there is no fear of penalty from the Commission. They are under impression that if the complaint files a case in the Commission, it will approximately come after one year to First Appellate Authority for disposal. In the meantime, the PIO will have ample opportunity to decide either to provide the same or destroy it. So that the information can be easily denied on pretext of non-availability of information which the Commissioners speak of available and permissible information in every hearing.
Mr. Jagadanand, highest score-winner may feel a self-congratulatory satisfaction by dishing out the figures of reduced pendency, but in the process he has made RTI Act a casualty of their arbitrary rule. It would result in growing frustration and hopelessness among the RTI users and further boost to corruption and misfeasance across the state.
Any Comments from everybody including office of the Commission is most welcome.
Pradip Pradhan
M-99378-43482
Date- 12.8.12
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