dear friends, we have all been reading for many days now, various versions of how shailesh gandhi the cic in delhi has failed us on many counts. some are upset that he is using his government salary to hire private staff to help him clear the appeals coming to his table, calling this action illegal. others are upset, that he does not let the third party citizens allowed by him to attend his hearings, to intervene while the proceedings are going on; these citizens are complete strangers to the appellants and as such, are not part of the appellant's group. yet others are livid that he is not penalizing the pios and the first appellate authorities. some are concerned that he is unionizing the official contract workers. between us, we need to clarify some misunderstandings and focus on the real and crucial issues of dispensing information.
1.cic shailesh gandhi has repeatedly requested the govt for more staff for his office, to no avail. the very forces fighting the dead bureaucracy, now think it would be more appropriate for him to follow the old and redundant bureaucratic method of pushing files from one table to another, for an urgent matter like more staff to clear the pendency? especially, given, that he knows that the government has no intentions of complying? left to his allotted staff, he would be sitting and twiddling his thumbs. should he have done precisely that, as that is what is officially permitted, instead of working from 9 am in the morning to late in the evening with the help of his extra staff? oh yes, shall we ask him if this extra work is permitted under the present rules and regulations, how much is he taking as overtime, what about the chai pani for his staff at such times, who is paying for this, what about the extra electricity bills? endless possibilities for new and newer kafkaesque scenarios are just waiting to be explored here. what say?do you not think the rti forum will be well utilized for this. no doubt, we will all be tremendously entertained for a long time if we do. 2. hearings, held at any forum, may it then be the court of law, or in front of an rti official, have to follow a certain order for the proceedings to be carried out,smoothly. interrupting or intervening during this procedure can not be allowed as it would break the thought processes and eventually lead to chaos. cic shailesh gandhi may have permitted citizens as observers to his hearings, this does not automatically lead to any right to interfere in his proceedings. 3. as cic shailesh gandhi explained in his talk on 8th march, he felt that to begin his work in a completely hostile environment, with penalties, would defeat the purpose he had gone to delhi for. his thinking was that if the officers were to be converted to providing information, instead of blocking it, it would be necessary to nurture them for a certain length of time/ period. he has done so, with levying a minimum of penalties and has got excellent results. he has also, subsequently announced, that the so called amnesty period is now over. in the 2009 cases the authorities will be penalised as required. are we more interested in a sea change in the mindset of our bureaucracy, ensuring that the wonderful rti act is followed in word and spirit, as well, or in checking how many officers the cic has beaten with the penal stick? besides, why do we decide that a citizen activist should function, only thus so and no other way. a hard core bureaucrat yes, we know that 99.99% will follow a fixed path. to feel betrayed, like a little child denied a lollipop, if a thinking adult follows a different path then the one proscribed by the child; displays shades of hitler do you not think? 4. cic shailesh gandhi found out that the official contractors were not paying their workers as promised and so stood up for these workers' rights. these are frightened kids just out of college. should he have kept quiet you think, letting the cycle of corruption to continue? really, tremendous potential here for more kafkaesque conversations over the internet, regarding this. cic (sg) has insisted that he must have computer literate staff, and most of even the top officials are not so. wrong of him to ask for this? filling systematically is non existent in the government offices. he is trying to bring some order in his, should we allow him to do that or insist that he function in the *official* manner? i feel, perhaps, some will disagree, that we are in danger of completely forgetting the ideals that drove shailesh to accepting the post of the cic in delhi. we too, urged him to do so, as we felt that he would be able to bring in real change in the babus, in delhi. what is important, is the sense, that information has to be transparently available to all of us. this is an attitude lacking in most of our officers, but, they are not a set of evil minders and to treat them so, would defeat the purpose of oiling the rusted machinery and making it work for us. why insist that there is only one set way to achieve this? regards, vidya vaidya > ,___ > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
