The New
Indian Express Kochi

SIC fails to redress grievance
Monday March 10 2008 11:10 IST

Manu Bharat
KOCHI: The Right to Information Act has undoubtedly proved to be a powerful weapon to bring transparency to the administration. But unfortunately, the implementing authority, the State Information Commission (SIC), doesn’t seem to address the grievance of the appellants satisfactorily.

The Right to Information Protection Forum (RIPF), an organization fighting for the right to information, has alleged that the Commission lacks the spirit of the rule in its functioning. As a justification for the allegations, the personal experience of the forum’s secretary has been pointed out.

The secretary of the forum N Rajendran filed an application under RTI Act seeking information on a government order relating to `One-Rank One-Pension’. Though the application was filed on May 5, 2006, he hasn’t yet received the required information.

``The Principal Information Officer of the Finance Department and the appellate authority gave me incorrect, incomplete and misleading information withholding 116 pages of the document and tampering with page numbers,’’ Rajendran said. The second appeal was filed by him before the Commission on August 23, 2006. The appeal No 99/2006/SIC was heard by the division bench of the Commission on November 7, 2006. The division bench, which found that the authorities had misled the appellant, issued directions to the department to provide him the missing pages. The order said that failure to comply with the direction would invite action under penal clause Section 20(1) of RTI Act.

``Ignoring the findings of the division bench and without informing the two commissioners who headed my case, another commissioner, who had not even been present at the hearing, dismissed the appeal,’’ said Rajendran. He later filed a Special Leave Petition on the matter which is still pending before the Commission.

To an RTI application filed by the RIPF about the `Rules of Procedure’ in decision-making and work distribution among the Information Commissioner, the Commission through a letter (No:7554/SIC-PIO/2007 dt 28.12.2007) informed that the ``SIC doesn’t have such procedures and has not issued any such orders’’.

``If the Commission fails to elicit the necessary information for the public from top bureaucrats, then the existence of such an authority itself is irrelevant,’’ he said.