HT : When info panel itself stonewalls : Sept 1, 2007

Saturday lead TIGHT-LIPPED When info panel itself stonewalls
 Citizens use the sunshine law to probe the State Information Commission's
working
 Chitrangada Choudhury
Mumbai

YOU CANNOT appeal against God.
Pathologist G. Vohra had to face this bleak fact when he tried to find out
from the powerful State Information Commission why it had not acted on his
appeals - filed more than a year earlier - against government departments
that had declined his requests for information. Vohra had submitted four
appeals to the Commission, the highest body of appeal under the Right to
Information Act, in June last year (see 'Four times unlucky').
"The Commission said it had heard 84 appeals filed after I filed mine," said
Vohra. "So why has it not heard mine yet? They would not answer that."
When the panel, meant to help citizens use the sunshine law to prevent the
government from dodging requests for information, itself started
stonewalling, Vohra unleashed the Act back on the organisation.
But the panel bluntly refused to reveal its rationale - if one existed -
that underpinned the order in which it dealt with appeals. In a letter, it
told him that it disposed appeals "as soon as possible" but that "revealing
the criteria under which the Commission decides which appeals to hear is not
under the information law's purview."

An official at the Commission, who declined to be named, told HT that it
heard appeals chronologically and was wading through ones filed in May 2006,
, though it did hear some cases out of turn.

To be fair, the panel might be prevaricating not merely because it does not
want to give information, but also because it is incapable of doing so -
something that information activists also concede. For in the nearly two
years since Parliament enacted the landmark sunshine law to make government
decision-making more transparent, Maharashtra's Commission has been flooded
with appeals, but does not have the manpower to deal with them.
It has more than 9,000 appeals pending, of which 1,200 are from Mumbai
residents. Appeals are piling up because more and more citizens are using
the law, only to find that the government's first instinct is to stonewall.
"In 95 per cent of the appeals I hear, I find the information should have
been given," said Suresh Joshi, chief information commissioner (see
interview 'Basic instinct: refuse information').

Moreover, the top panel has just four information commissioners, although
the law allows the government to appoint ten. As a result, the four
officials find themselves in over their heads with work.

But Ajay Marathe, a chemical engineer, feels the panel could work more
efficiently with existing resources. "It can decide many cases without
calling both sides for a hearing," said Marathe, whose appeals, like
Vohra's, are also pending for nearly a year. He said the panel should
distribute the results of its decisions to officials down the line, so that
they can use these as models for disposing similar cases.

To get an idea of the panel's productivity , Marathe asked it how long it
took, on average, to decide on appeals. It declined his request. He filed an
appeal last September to Joshi. Marathe is not holding his breath.
chitrangada.choudhury@ hindustantimes.com Four times unlucky Vohra filed
four requests for information between March and June 2006. In each case,
senior officials, including Indian Administrative Service officers, refused
his request or did not reply - violating the sunshine law, which states
information must be given within a month. Vohra appealed to the State
Information Commission in June 2006. The appeals are pending. Vohra wanted
to know From the municipal corporation why it had replaced old cobblestones
that were in good shape with interlocking paver blocks on the city's
arterial roads.

From the Urban Development Department how much progress it had made in
framing rules for how the 1975 Tree Act -which says how and when trees can
be cut - should be implemented. There have been no rules for more than three
decades.

From the municipal corporation, whether a gymnasium built inside its park in
Sion is an illegal structure. The corporation had earlier replied that it
did violate certain development rules.

From his ward office in Sion what provisions it had made to allow citizens
to retrieve information about its policies and spending, which the sunshine
law's suo moto disclosure clause says officials must make public even before
any one asks for it.

Publication : HT; Section : Metro; Pg : 3; Date : 1/9/07
URL :
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=01_09_2007_003_003&typ=0&pub=264