Right to Public Services Bill- States to act at tandem with Jan Lokpal Bill
(First Part of the Keynote Address by Mr.Chitta Ranjan Behera a social activist at Rushikulya auditorium, CYSD, Bhubaneswar at the Seminar organized jointly by Transparency International Odisha Chapter and CYSD on 31st October 2011. After a note of welcome delivered by Mr.G.H.Khuntia retd Director Orissa Mining Corporation, Prof Bimalendu Mohanty, Chairman of Transparency International Odisha Chapter and Convener of the Seminar spoke about the main objective of the Seminar i.e. whether Odisha should go for enacting a State law for guaranteeing time-bound delivery of public services just as some other States in the country have done in recent times. He was followed by the key-note speaker Mr. Chitta Ranjan Behera)
It is a fact that several States across the country have of late engaged themselves with a new kind of legislative dispensation, which though titled differently in different States, sets out a grandiose promise for guaranteeing time-bound delivery of public services to the applicant citizens and penalizing the errant officials proved guilty of withholding or obstructing such delivery. Strictly speaking, only 3 States, namely Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi have enforced such a law with effect from 25 Sept 2010, 15 Aug 2011 and 15 Sept 2011 respectively by way of notifying the necessary rules for operationalising its provisions. Though several other States such as Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand and Kerala have introduced some such law either by enactment through legislature or by Ordinance of the Governor or by special directives from the Government, the said corpus of laws, in absence of the corresponding rules are still short of enforcement in legal sense of the term. It is worth noting that the working of the new law has passed one-year mark only in Madhya Pradesh, while it is still in an infantile stage in other two States, namely Bihar where it is about two and half months old and Delhi where it is about one and half months old. There are still some other States like Orissa which feverishly mull the proposal for enacting such a law in some form or other simply to fall in line with the bandwagon.
It is interesting to note that as per a recent claim made by the Chief Minister Madhya Pradesh where the Act is captioned Madhya Pradesh Lok Sewaon Ke Pradan Ki Guarantee Adhiniyam 2010 or Madhya Pradesh Public Service Guarantee Act 2010 and covers 52 public services, a variety of public services were delivered in time in response to 61 lakh 17 thousand 979 out of 61 lakh 25 thousand 598 applications received directly by the concerned offices, and to 96 thousand 922 out of 1 lakh 28 thousand 577 applications received online (vide http://khojkhabarnews.com/?p=16659). Even though these official figures on MP's success story are yet to be corroborated by an independent agency through the mechanism of social audit, there is however no irrefutable ground either to deny their veracity. The plausible reason behind the Madhya Pradesh success story may be the very pro-people provision built into the Act under its Section 7(3), which provides for payment of compensation to the aggrieved applicant out of the amount of penalty realizable from the designated officer and first appellate officer held guilty of violating the Act. It is worth noting that the amount of penalty under the MP Act applicable to either of the two officers mentioned above ranges from Rs.500/- to Rs.5000/- on account of their failure to discharge their obligations 'without any sufficient and reasonable cause', while the designated officer is charged a penalty @Rs.250/- per day's delay in delivery of the concerned service up to a maximum of Rupees five thousand.
This is not to say that every State ought to emulate MP Public Service Guarantee Act 2010 to introduce one such law through their respective legislatures. It needs to be remembered that the MP law, which was a maiden initiative, was enacted long before the Anna Hazare campaign for Jan Lokpal Bill commenced in April 2011. Had there been no Jan Lokpal Bill, the MP law might have deservedly served as the model legislation in respect of right to public services for the remaining States and UTs across the country, because it not only provided for strong penalty clause against the errant officers and compensation for the aggrieved citizens, but also was a very neatly and meticulously drafted instrument from a citizen-friendly perspective. Now that the Jan Lokpal Bill in its version 2.3 has been taken up by the Parliamentary Standing Committee for a closer scrutiny prior to the deliberations over it in the Parliament, we need to ascertain whether the said Bill has any provisions to offer on the front of the much talked about citizens' right to time bound delivery of public services, and if so, how do they fare in comparison to the MP Public Services Guarantee Act 2010, which presumably the best of the lot among the kindred State laws as of today.
As a matter of fact, the Jan Lokpal Bill 2011 Version 2.3 provides for a separate and detail dispensation regarding right to public services, placed in Chapter-XIII entitled Grievance Redressal System. The terms 'Grievance' has been defined in Section 2(h) of the Bill as "a claim by a person that he could not get satisfactory redressal according to a citizens' charter despite approaching a Grievance Redressal Officer of that Department". The Section 25 occurring under the above mentioned chapter mandates inter alia that every public authority shall publish a citizens' charter enumerating therein "the public authority's commitments to the citizens which are capable of being met within a specific time limit and shall designate the officer whose duty would be to fulfill the commitment of the public authority". Each public authority shall designate its senior-most officer as the Public Grievance Redressal Officer, to whom a complaint could be made for any violation of the citizens' charter. It shall be the duty of the PGRO to get the grievance redressed within a period of 30 days from the receipt of the complaint. In the event of the PGRO not getting the grievance redressed within the stipulated period a complaint could lie to the Lokpal against him. The Lokpal after hearing the PGRO, may impose a penalty not exceeding Rs. 500/- for each day's delay but not exceeding Rs. 50,000/- to be recovered from the salaries of the said Officer. Such pecuniary penalty apart, the Lokpal may also recommend as and where necessary imposition of departmental punishment on the guilty PGRO. Besides, Lokpal shall appoint at least one officer in each district to be called Appellate Grievance Officer. A social audit of the performance of each Appellate Grievance Officer shall be held every six months in the presence of a senior officer from Lokpal, where the AGO shall present the data related to his functioning, respond to public queries and incorporate suggestions from public in the interest of better performance. This is however not to say that the grievance redressal mechanism in respect public services as mooted by Jan Lokpal Bill is not without fault-lines. As for its major lacunas, no time limit has been prescribed for adherence by the Appellate Grievance Officer of Lokpal in respect of deciding the complaint against the PGRO, and the provision for compensation to the aggrieved applicant is also conspicuous by its absence. If these two lacunas are duly addressed to, the Jan Lokpal Bill, with its strong penalty clause against the errant and corrupt officials, seems to offer an ideal legislative framework for actualizing the citizens' right to time-bound delivery of public services.
The very States which are in varying stages of legislating Citizens' Right to Public Services ought to reckon with the prospect that following the enactment sooner or later of Jan Lokpal Bill, which is an item under Central List with its applicability to both Centre and States, it would inevitably lead to automatic repeal of all existing State Lokayukta laws including their provisions for grievance redressal in respect of citizens' charter to make way for their replacement by the corresponding provisions made in the Jan Lokpal Bill. For an analogy, just as State RTI laws were at one repealed following the passing of RTI Act 2005, the State laws on Lokayuktas and right to public services shall stand suo motu repealed following the enactment of Jan Lokpal Bill. That being so, there is absolutely no cause for hurrying up for enacting State laws on citizens' right to public services just at the moment.
Rather the concerned States who are intent upon having a good law for ensuring time-bound delivery of public services should patiently wait for the enactment of Jan Lokpal Bill by the Parliament, which is after all a matter of some months only. This is not to suggest that these States have nothing to do before the proposed enactment takes effect. Far from it; the official think-tanks and civil society groups of these States should exert themselves in right earnest to partake of the ongoing debate around Jan Lokpal Bill with a view to plugging its critical loopholes and rendering it as foolproof as possible from a citizen-friendly perspective.
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