Dear Mr. Sailesh Gandhi,
I am fully agree with your suggestions in your message except the following one, about which I have some reservations \:
A. The Information Commissions should set a target for disposals,- I suggest 5000 per Commissioner per year. An attempt should be made to increase this target number.
An Information Commissioner works for about 200 days in a year (after deducting 105 days towards Saturdays and Sundays + 20 odd Public Holidays + 40 for meetings and touring and personal leaves) if one works for all other days. But Most Commissioners works for 2 to 3 days in a week out of the five working days. this further reduces the working days to 80 to 120 days in a year. This is due to the inadequate infrastructure as well as staff provided to the commissioners. In these days the Commissioner hold court for 2 to 3 hours a day only.
Now to clear 5000 Appeals/Complaints in a year, each commissioner has to hear between 40 to 65 cases daily, if each case is heard only once. An Appeal/Complaint case takes about 3 to 5 hearings averaging at 4 hearings. so to dispose of 5000 Appeals/Complaints, each Commissioner has to take up 160 to 260 hearings per day. It is impossible for the Commissioners to cope with.
To achieve target to dispose of 5000 Appeals/Complaints, the Commissioners have to work all the five days and work from 10.00 am till 5.00 pm, even to extend the working hours beyond 5.00 pm. This will adversely affect the quality of the decision making and delivery of justice to the Appellants/Complainants.
Moreover, this will also need the additional staff as well as additional infrastructure together with the enhanced budget. All the three are scares commodity.
The better way is to reduce the number of appeals and complaints by better delivery of justice, improving the quality of decision making as well as percolating the message down to the PIOs to deliver the information at that level effectively so that the Complainant/Appellant may not have to approach the commissions. Once the matter comes to the Commission and the Commission, if finds that the PIO is at fault, the Provisions of Section 19(8), 20(1) and 20(2) of the RTI are Act 2005 are used strictly, so that the message goes down that the Commission means business.
The tendency of filing the unnecessary RTI Application should also be curbed by the commissions by educating the people and incorporating a world of advise in the order while rejecting the Appeals/complaints, if found without any merit.
Commissions should also keep in mind that the RTI Act 2005 in now not in infancy after 7 years in being. Most Public Authorities are yer to comply with Section 3 requirements. Commission should liberally use section 25(5), Section 19(8)(a)(ii) to (iv) to caution the Public Authorities to strengthen the RTI Regime (and not to dilute the same, as was inevitable in the recent Conference held on the eve of the RTI anniversary at New Delhi).
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Have filed an intervention in the Supreme Court with along with Aruna Roy seeking a transparent process of selection of Information Commissioners, instead of the arbitrary methods adopted presently and the equally arbitrary method of having retired judges. This is in the review petition in WP 210 of 2012 (Namit Sharma). This will be heard on 3 December. A probable method could be:
A. The Information Commissions should set a target for disposals,- I suggest 5000 per Commissioner per year. An attempt should be made to increase this target number.
B. Every six months they should review their actual performance per
Commissioner and forecast the expected receipts and disposals for the next two years, factoring the retirements. This forecast would show the requirements for new Commissioners to be appointed.
C. The Government should advertise its intention to appoint a certain number of Information Commissioners depending the need, four months in advance. Eminent people could apply or be nominated by others.
D. A search committee,- perhaps,- consisting of two members of
Parliament, Chief Information Commissioner, one Vice Chancellor, one
Supreme Court judge and two RTI activists could be formed to shortlist a panel which could be three times the number of Commissioners to be selected. These could be announced with the minutes of the meeting at which the shortlisting was done.
E. A Public interview should be held to give Citizens and groups the
opportunity to hear the views and commitment to work of the candidates. After this the search committee could give its recommendation. Based on these inputs, the final decision to select the Commissioners could be taken by the Committee as per the Act consisting of PM, LOP and one Minister. (A similar process could be adopted for State Commissions with MLAs instead of MPs and High Court judge instead of Supreme Court judge).
It may be useful if people discuss and debate this urgently.
--
Love
shailesh
All my emails are in Public domain.
Mera Bharat Mahaan...
Nahi Hai,
Per Yeh Dosh Mera Hai.
Tel: 91 22 26001003; 8976240798
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