Dr Manmohan Singh,Prime Minister,New Delhi Dear Sir, Congratulations for killing the freedom of expression by using indifferent, inefficient, corrupt and criminal minded bureaucrats as Information Commissioners while being dead against posting of IC of impeccable integrity. With kind regards,
-- (Babubhai Vaghela)) C 202, Shrinandnagar V, Makarba Road Vejalpur, Ahmedabad - 380051 M - 94276 08632 (Administrator - Google Group - Right to Information Act 2005) http://groups.google.com/group/Right-to-Information-Act-2005/about?hl=en Mumbai Mirror 1st June 2009 Page 5 15,438 RTI appeals pending in state Activists Say High Backlog Is Slowly Killing Effectiveness Of The Act Viju B I TNN Mumbai: The serious issue of pendency of Right to Information (RTI) appeals was mentioned in the charter of demands made by the 11 RTI activists who were sent to jail after they sang the national anthem at the state chief information commissioner Suresh Joshi’s office last week. The issue unfortunately got sidelined in the hurly-burly of events. TOI has got a copy of the performance records of individual information commissioners across the state which shows that of the seven divisions, Aurangabad information commissioner (V Borge) tops the pendency of appeals with 4,062 and Pune information commissioner (V Kuvlekar) comes a close second with 4,054 pending appeals till April 1, 2009. The information commissioners for Mumbai and Pune have comparatively less number of appeals that are pending, with the Mumbai division having 1,168 appeals and Konkan division having 1,038 appeals to be heard till April 1, 2009. The overall pendency of appeals has gone up to 15,438 and according to RTI activists, this is slowly killing the effectiveness of the threeand-a-half year-old RTI Act. “I feel the greatest threat to the survival of the RTI Act is the mounting pendency of appeals. If applicants are not provided with accurate information within the stipulated period, they will lose faith in the Act,’’ said central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi. RTI activist Bhaskar Prabhu said, “Each information commissioner should dispose of at least 20 appeals every day to clear the current backlog. Ideally, an information commissioner can dispose of around 250-300 cases per month.’’ Gandhi hears over 650 appeals every month and his colleague, Annapurna Dixit, disposed of over 300 appeals each month. “We hope that the state information commissioners take a cue from this and increase their rate of disposal,’’ Prabhu added. RTI activist Simpreet Singh said people are losing faith in the Act because of the delay. “I had filed a second appeal with the information commission six months ago, the hearing is yet to come up. The RTI Act was a very effective tool in the first two years of its coming into effect. But now the pendency of appeals is making people lose faith in the Act,’’ Singh added. Meanwhile, a State Information Commission official said the steep rise in pendency had occurred because, for the initial period of one year and six months, the state had only one commissioner. “We have realised that the penalties imposed by the information commissions have not been recovered by the state agencies. As a result, the public information officers brazenly deny the information,’’ said an SIC official.*‘Arrest after anthem is ridiculous’ * Mumbai: Former IAS officer Arun Bhatia on Monday said that the arrest of 11 RTI activists for singing the national anthem at the state chief information comm i s s i o n e r Suresh Joshi’s office was illegal and a misuse of power by the bureaucracy. He was speaking at a public meeting on Saturday on the issue of the abuse of power by bureaucrats. Former IPS officer-turned-lawyer Y P Singh said that the case does not have any legal standing. “The police have charged them under IPC sections like house trespass and intention to assault, which is totally ridiculous,’’ he said. The RTI activists are now planning to submit a memorandum to the chief minister on taking up the matter urgently and taking action against the officers who put them behind bars. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Babubhai Vaghela <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 5:36 AM Subject: If corrupt criminal bureaucrat Mr Wajahat Habibullah, as CIC, does not follow कोड आफ एथिक्स To: right-to-information-act-2005 < [email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, [email protected] Cc: Saibal Sarkar Dy Scy PG PMO <[email protected]>, Wajahat Habibullah CIC <[email protected]>, Prof M M Ansari Information Commissioner CIC < [email protected]>, L C Singhi Secretary CIC <[email protected]>, "V C Agarwal Director (HR) IOC" <[email protected]>, Pratyanshu Sinha CVC New Delhi < [email protected]>, Help Supreme Court <[email protected]>, Smt Pratibha Patil President of India <[email protected]> Dear Members, Code of Ethics adopted by Central Information Commission effective 19th May 2009 is placed at - http://www.esnips.com/doc/e4f2222b-fbb2-4792-83c6-a6d8428028bd/CodeOfEthics Interestingly enough, if corrupt criminal bureaucrat Mr Wajahat Habibullah, as Chief Information Commissioner of Central Information Commission who has butchered the Right to Information Act 2005, does not follow Code of Ethics, hardly anything can be done in the absence of any provision on time limit within which the grievance of a citizen would be resolved. Hence, the complaint on violation of Code of Ethics, the way second appeals and RTI complaints remain pending at CIC without getting registered for years togather, can remain pending forever without getting redressed. Therefore, Code of Ethics adopted by the Central Information Commission is nothing more than a show piece to fool the ignorant people. With kind regards, -- (Babubhai Vaghela)) C 202, Shrinandnagar V, Makarba Road Vejalpur, Ahmedabad - 380051 M - 94276 08632 (Administrator - Google Group - Right to Information Act 2005) http://groups.google.com/group/Right-to-Information-Act-2005/about?hl=en [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
