It has now been confirmed that IC M M Ansari is availing of hospitality by Oil PSU's while on official tours.
This is a clear violation of the Code of Ethics issued by CIC (http://cic.gov.in/CIC-Minutes/CodeOfEthics.pdf), item 1 reads: "The behavior and conduct of members of the CIC must reaffirm the people’s faith in the impartiality of the Commission. Accordingly any act of a Central Information Commissioner whether in official or personal capacity, which erodes the credibility of this perception, has to be avoided." Item 7 reads: "An Information Commissioner shall not accept gifts or hospitality except from his family, close relations and friends." Applicant asked for information from the PIO of CIC regarding the official tour expenses of IC M M Ansari during his visit to Chennai: (from http://cic.gov.in/CIC-Orders/WB-08062009-02.pdf) "There are reports on the Internet which suggest that the IC Shri M. M. Ansari has availed hospitality from Indian Oil another OIL Major during his visit to Chennai. Kindly provide following information in this regard (a)Kindly inform if the said trip was a Personal or an Official trip, (b) If the Trip was an official trip, kindly inform the travel/ Lodging/Boarding Expenses incurred by the Commission/ Government for his visit to Chennai.” CPIO of CIC replied: It was an official trip but the Commission did not incur any expenditure on this. However, for the expenditure incurred by the Govt. of RTI request has been transferred u/s 6 (3) to IOC. Matter went to Second Appeal and the CIC Wajahat Habibullah has ordered: It appears that Shri Khanna has not received any information on the expenditure incurred by Indian Oil Corporation in the case of information sought through the transfer of question No. 6 of Shri Pankaj Khanna’s RTI application of 13.3.07 on the expenditure incurred on travel/lodging/boarding expenses incurred by Information Commissioner Shri M. M. Ansari on his visit to Chennai. Although such a transfer was in accordance with Sec 6 (3) of the RTI Act, the office of the Commission is expected to keep a record of all official visits undertaken by the Commissioners including details of expenses. CPIO Shri Pankaj KP Shreyaskar will, therefore, obtain this information from the Asstt. Registrar attached to the Bench of Information Commissioner Shri M. M. Ansari and submit the same to us within ten working days of the date of issue of this Decision Notice. Now, how can we citizens expect such IC's in the CIC and SIC, to hear our cases impartially, against the same PSU's, whose hospitality they avail of, so often ? It seems that the Ethics code is thrown out of the window even before the ink has dried on the paper ! Will CIC Wajahat Habibullah stand up for helpless appellants/complainants and ask for a suo-motu review of all orders/decisions of IC M M Ansari concerning IOC (specially because he himself has withdrawn the right to review) ? What mechanism does the CIC have to deal with his own biased IC's ? As the "Administrative" and "figure" head of the CIC will the CIC Wajahat Habibullah please take some action on this matter to ensure that the Guradian Angel of the RTI Act in India itself adheres to the objectives outlined in the preamble of the RTI Act: ".........in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, ...............whereas democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed;......." RTIwanted [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
