Central Information Commission has been headless since 3 October and had 7 vacancies, with only four commissioners working. 1 retired Friday, the three others are set to retire Monday.
Central Information Commission cites privacy to dismiss RTI appeal that sought disclosure of an in-house SC inquiry report absolving ex-CJI of sexual harassment charges in 2019.
President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of office to Sinha as the Central Information Commissioner at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan Saturday.
The CIC made the request to the govt last month in view of the fact that offices are shut due to the lockdown, making it difficult to reply to RTI queries.
In a meeting of the Central Information Commission held on 27 March, the information commissioners opposed the govt's proposal and saw it as an attack on their independence.
In a response to an RTI query, the Ministry of Home Affairs invoked three exemption clauses from the RTI Act to withhold the information without giving any reasons.
Documents made public by the government show that the search committee brought in four others who were not interested in the Chief Information Commissioner post.
India should have secured greater savings by pressing Russia for prices nearer the cap while sustaining high volumes. This would have preserved strategic autonomy and served economic logic.
One such website has drawn particular scrutiny for spreading fake stories that have upset not only the Indian but also foreign defence firms by falsely attributing misinformation.
I do not know if Anajali Bhardwaj is only doing vacancy watching of the information commissions or also checking if the information commissioners are doing their job correctly too.
I too have been using the RTI Act with the sole purpose of furthering the objective of the Act as stated in the Preamble: ‘to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority’ and ‘to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed’.
My experience over the years has led me to introduce a Mission Statement for saving the Right to Information. It goes like this:
Save Right to Information. Use Right to Information Act.
Get Information, Or……
Expose at least three idiots/traitors* among public servants!
1. The Public Information Officer
2. The First Appellate Authority (and the head of public authority where the head of the public authority is not the FAA!) and
3. The Information Commissioner
* An idiot is one who does not know the job s/he is getting paid to do and a traitor is one who knows it but does not do it. Provided that even an idiot can be branded a traitor based on the consequences of his/her action
Right from the first Chief Information Commissioners of the Central Information Commission and Kerala State Information Commissions, the way they had started implementing the RTI Act, there was no doubt that instead of containing corruption, these commissions were going to be the new breeding grounds of corruption. And long before our Supreme Court had accepted a wide meaning for corruption, while exonerating Adv Prashant Bhushan in a contempt of court case against him for alleging that 8 Chief Justices of India were corrupt, the information commissions had established one firmly-that is, even when directing the defaulting Public Information Officers to provide information sought, failing to impose the mandatory penalty. And going by the quip that there are no free lunches, the possibility of corruption in its usual sense cannot also be ruled out. Today I am convinced that these commissions have been reduced to rehabilitation centers for retired bureaucrats, both at the Centre and the states.
Right from not disposing of complaints and appeals on first come first served basis to disposing them off in lackadaisical manner to failing to impose the mandatory penalty of defaulting PIOs the failings of the information commissioners are there for all to see. In the matter of their failures to impose the mandatory penalty the information commissioners are also liable to be prosecuted under Section 219 of the IPC which can end up with imprisonment for 7 years. But how can an ordinary citizen do it? The courts themselves are a big failure in dispensing justice. Then there is the cost factor and also the absurd need for members of the public to take permission from one public servant to prosecute another.
I do not know if Anajali Bhardwaj is only doing vacancy watching of the information commissions or also checking if the information commissioners are doing their job correctly too.
I too have been using the RTI Act with the sole purpose of furthering the objective of the Act as stated in the Preamble: ‘to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority’ and ‘to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed’.
My experience over the years has led me to introduce a Mission Statement for saving the Right to Information. It goes like this:
Save Right to Information. Use Right to Information Act.
Get Information, Or……
Expose at least three idiots/traitors* among public servants!
1. The Public Information Officer
2. The First Appellate Authority (and the head of public authority where the head of the public authority is not the FAA!) and
3. The Information Commissioner
* An idiot is one who does not know the job s/he is getting paid to do and a traitor is one who knows it but does not do it. Provided that even an idiot can be branded a traitor based on the consequences of his/her action
Right from the first Chief Information Commissioners of the Central Information Commission and Kerala State Information Commissions, the way they had started implementing the RTI Act, there was no doubt that instead of containing corruption, these commissions were going to be the new breeding grounds of corruption. And long before our Supreme Court had accepted a wide meaning for corruption, while exonerating Adv Prashant Bhushan in a contempt of court case against him for alleging that 8 Chief Justices of India were corrupt, the information commissions had established one firmly-that is, even when directing the defaulting Public Information Officers to provide information sought, failing to impose the mandatory penalty. And going by the quip that there are no free lunches, the possibility of corruption in its usual sense cannot also be ruled out. Today I am convinced that these commissions have been reduced to rehabilitation centers for retired bureaucrats, both at the Centre and the states.
Right from not disposing of complaints and appeals on first come first served basis to disposing them off in lackadaisical manner to failing to impose the mandatory penalty of defaulting PIOs the failings of the information commissioners are there for all to see. In the matter of their failures to impose the mandatory penalty the information commissioners are also liable to be prosecuted under Section 219 of the IPC which can end up with imprisonment for 7 years. But how can an ordinary citizen do it? The courts themselves are a big failure in dispensing justice. Then there is the cost factor and also the absurd need for members of the public to take permission from one public servant to prosecute another.