What Public Needs to Know

Official
website of Govt. of Assam – Public Information Officers (Union Govt.)
– Public Information Officers (Indian Parliament) – Central Information
Commission (CIC) – Directorate of Information & Public Relations
Govt. Of Assam

RTI
Acts & Rules – RTI User’s Guide
– RTI Acts 2005, FAQ (in Assamese)
– RTI Acts 2005, Main Characteristics
(in Assamese)

What The Public Needs To Know:
By: R.S. Mooshahary

It is corruption that the RTI Act seeks to fight,
and it is the people who must rise to the occasion to make this endeavour an astounding
success, RANJIT S. MOOSHAHARY deliberates.

The Right to Information Act is an empowering legislation aimed at creating
a regime of good governance through transparency and accountability in
public administration. The whole Act came into force on October 12, 2005.
In Asom, it became operational, with effect from
March 1 this year, with the assumption of office of the State Chief Information
Commissioner and one State Information Commissioner The office of the
Assam Information Commission is functioning from Janata Bhavan, Dispur,
Asom. Telephones and fax nos. are: 2261676/ 2662704 / 2261900.

That the governance is beset with corruption and maladministration is
not a new thing. There is hardly any one among the public who does not
have harrowing tales to tell for getting anything legitimate done in a
public office. People give vent to their despair and anger against public
functionaries with cynicism but hesitate to launch a fight to eradicate
these evils. It is not going to help improve things; but will only perpetuate
corruption and inefficiency.

The Right to Information Act provides an effective tool to hold the government
accountable to the governed. It is an instrument in the hands of the citizens
to contain corruption and usher in a people-friendly administration. It
is, therefore, necessary for the people to know what their rights are
under the RTI Act and how to use them.

There is a clear division of responsibility in the implementation of RTI
Act. The Central government, for affairs of the Centre, and the State
governments, for the affairs of the States,
are required to comply with the provisions of the Act within the stipulated
time. The implementation of the Act is impeded where the government is
slow or indifferent to the task of fulfilling their responsibilities,
while timely action by the public authorities will facilitate realization
of the rights the Act bestows on the people.

The public authorities are required to voluntarily disseminate, under
section 4 of the Act, information on the roles, responsibilities, powers,
functions, rules and regulations governing the activities of public offices
in great detail through various means of communications. If it is done
in entirety, the public world come to know many aspects of the action
the public servants take in their official capacities without having to
take recourse to the RTI Act. Indeed this is the objective of this legislation
– to provide information to public suo moto and involve them in creating
transparency in the functioning of public office. Though these disclosures
are to be made within 120 days of the promulgation of the Act, which was
by October 12, 2005, none of the public offices in the State has adhered
to these requirements. The public authorities can easily fulfill these
obligations to a considerable extent by putting up the details in the
notice boards, and by giving publicity through newspapers.

In each public offices there should be a designated State Public Information
Officer (SPIO) who would receive and provide information to the petitioners.
In smaller offices, at the sub divisional level, there should be a Assistant
State Public Information Officer (ASPIO) designated to receive the petitions
and send them to the SPIO for furnishing information. In various offices,
SPIO/ ASPIO has been designated; but the public docs not come to know
of it because there is no publicity. The easiest way to inform the people
of the presence of ASPIO / SPIO is by putting up, in the notice boards,
their names and also the names of other officers to whom the people can
submit their requests or seek assistance for obtaining information.

Any person wanting any information should submit a request to the SPIO
/ ASPIO. There is no prescribed application form, and the request can
be made in a plain paper clearly listing out the information ought. It
should be accompanied by an application fee of Rs.10 which can be paid
in cash, or by cheque/draft or Indian Postal Order or court fee stamps.
The applicant is not required to deposit the cash by way of treasury challan
but must insist on a receipt for the money. While, obtaining information,
a small amount of fees is likewise to be paid. No fee is, however, required
to be paid for application or information if the person making the request
is below the poverty line.

Where the petitioner does not know if the SPIO/ASPIO has been designated,
the request may be addressed to the head of office making it clear that
the information wanted by him is sought from the SPIO. No reason required
to be given for seeking the information. The SPIO/ASPIO is duty-bound
to accept the application and issue acknowledgement even if the subject
matter of the petition does not concern that department. It is the duty
of the SPIO to transfer such misdirected petitions to the relevant department
under section 6(3) of the Act. The Act also requires the SPIO/ASPIO to
assist the petitioner in every possible way to submit the petition, including
reducing the oral request to writing if the petitioner is unable to do
it.

After the application is submitted, the petitioner should wait for 30
days. Within that period the information has to be provided, and if the
petitioner is satisfied with the information, then things have a smooth
ending. But in case the information is not provided or it is unsatisfactory,
then appeal to be filed before the officer senior to SPIO in the same
office who in turn is required to give his decision within a period of
30 days. If that also does not satisfy the petitioner, then a second appeal
can be filed before the State Information Commission within a period of
90 days from the date on which the decision should have been made or actually
received by the petitioner. The Commission will hear the parties concerned
and arrive at a decision which will be binding on all the parties.

The Commission receives a number of petitions directly from the public
seeking information. It should be known by all that the Commission is
not the custodian of information, and that it can only make it available
through the authority that possesses the information. So the Commission
transfers the directly received petitions to the relevant public authorities
under section 6(3) of the Act with direction to provide information within
the time limit prescribed under the Act, which is 30 days from the dare
of receipt of request by the public authority. A copy of the transfer
letter is also marked to the person making the request to enable him/her
to follow up the matter, and also to lodge complaint to the Commission
if information is not received.

The Act, under Section 18, enables the public to complain before the Commission
directly where the SPIO/ASPIO has not been designated, or the petitioner
is not able to submit the
application on one ground or the other, or misleading/incomplete information
has been provided by the SPIO, or an unreasonable amount of fees has been
charged from the petitioner, or any other grounds on account of which
access to Information has been denied. This is the provision which has
been used by the public in Asom very liberally, which goes to show that
the State government is lacking in its compliance with the requirement
of the Act to facilitate access to information by the public. The Assam
Information Commission conducts inquiry into complaints of this type within
a month and passes appropriate orders. So far the petitioners and the
public authorities have attended positive cooperation to the Commission
in conducting inquires, and no opportunity has arisen to resort to penal
action against any public authority or SPIO.

The Information Commission is vested with the powers of imposing a
penalty of Rs.25 per day up to a total amount not exceeding Rs.25000
on SPIO for non-compliance of the provisions of the Act, besides recommending
departmental action. The Commission is also empowered to require the
public authority to compensate the complainant for the loss or other
detriment suffered in trying to obtain information. This, no doubt,
helps the Commission to implement its decisions.

Nevertheless, the success of this revolutionary legislation will greatly
depend on the interest and awareness of the public at large. It is mandated
in the Act itself that the government carries our educational programmes
to advance the understanding and implementation of the Act. Bur so far
no such program has been organized. The Commission has told the government
that it is willing to undertake this responsibility provided the fund
and logistic support are made available to it, and it is still awaiting
its response. The Commission, of course, is carrying out interactive meetings
with the public and the government functionaries, as frequently as it
is practicable for it, in advancing the implementation of the Act.

The Right to Information Act is itself a product of public initiative
and concern for establishing an accountable and transparent governance.
It started in Rajasthan in 1990s when the simple illiterate villagers
of Beewar demanded the account of public money being spent on developmental
works. Nevathi Bai, a simple rural housewife, her face concealed in a
typical Rajasthani ohrni, raising her voice in the microphone, gave the
call hamara paisa, hamara hisab, and that created a wave of public enthusiasm
that swept across the region over a period of time in which many corrupt
public servants were taken to task and humiliated. This spirit of Nevathi
Bai is perceptible in the Act because its stated objectives are to contain
corruption through public auditing of government activities and to create
a sense of accountability in the mindset of public servants through transparency.

Corruption is an endemic bane in Asom, and not the lack of resources or
distance from Delhi. If all the money earmarked for the development of
the State was deployed with honesty and sincerity for the purpose for
which it was made available year after year, this land of ours would have
been truly mungdunsunkham (country-full-garden-gold) – as the Ahom warriors
proclaimed on seeing its prosperous landscape in the earlier part of the
13th century.

We can still go back to that forlorn glory by establishing clean and people-friendly
public service. The people of Asom – particularly the women – are known
for their mass movement potential even in the face of threat to life and
liberty. Now a time has come to launch a spirited crusade against corruption,
inefficiency and indifference in governance. This movement does not involve
any element of threat – personal or otherwise – but only rewards in the
form of clean, efficient and responsible public service that would enrich
our social, economic and cultural status.

The simple and fun-loving people of Asom have tolerated injustice for
too long – the injustice perpetrated by our own people – and it is we
who have to set it right. Let us begin this war by using the weapon of
Right to Information and usher in a state of change in the land of lahe
lahe. The Assam Information Commission will play a proactive role in this
process of change for the better.

(The writer is the State Chief Information
Commissioner, Asom) ••