To
Mr.Navin Pattnaik
Hon’ble Chief Minister
Govt.of Orissa, Bhubaneswar

Hon’ble Sir, 

1. The undersigned, on behalf of the Civil Society Groups who had assembled in a State level Consultation on Operatoinalisation of Right to Information Act 2005 organised by Right to Food Campaign (a Network of Civil Society Organisations, NGOs and Activists) at Red Cross Bhawan, Bhunbaneswar on 12^th and 13^th Sept.’ 05 supported by Action Aid Orissa, is privileged to present this memorandum to your august office for a judicious decision at the earliest.

2. After conducting the deliberations for two days, we do feel that the Rules to be framed by the Govt. of Orissa under the RTI Act should not only give an operational effect to the letter and spirit of the new law but also plug in loopholes or missing links if there be any in the original legislation. Further the Rules to be so framed ought to be as user-friendly as possible to benefit both public authorities and citizenry at large.

3. For your kind information, the enabling provision under the Section-27(2f) authorizes the appropriate Govt. to frame rules on additional matters if felt necessary, even if these are not specifically mentioned under the Section 27 proper.

1. The application fee payable under the Section 6(1) should be as minimal as possible. As you know, the Section 7(5) enjoins upon each appropriate Govt. to make the application fee ‘inter alia’ reasonable.

2. The fee payable under Section 7(1), i.e. the fee for cost of the information and the fee payable under Section 7 (5) i.e. a further fee for cost of the information if provided in print or electronic format should be made just minimal to cover their cost of production only, as is clearly expected by the Act itself under Section 7(5).

3. Considering the stringent financial condition of the State, you may appoint only a few, say, only two or three Information Commissioners including the Chief Information Commissioner of the State, to start with, in place of the maximum admissible numbers of them (1+ 10). But to make the State Information Commission effectively operational from its very inception the salary and allowances payable to the officers and employees of the State Information Commission under Section 16(6) should be made adequate enough. At the same time, adequate infrastructure including up-to-date communication equipments and vehicles should be provided to the office of the State Information Commission. The said infrastructure should also include enough sitting and waiting arrangements for the visitors from among the public in connection with their complaint and/or appeal.

4. Ironically, the appropriate Govt. is required under section 27(2E) of the Act to formulate the procedure to be adopted by the Information Commission in deciding the appeals. Ironical, because the Information Commission as conceived under the Section 18 (3) is virtually a Civil Court whereas all the public authorities under the appropriate Govt. are presumed to be the would-be defaulters of the Act, against whom the complaints and appeals would be lodged for disposal by the Commission. So it is suggested that an appropriate Govt. or for that matter, our State Govt. should leave the job of formulating the detail procedure of deciding the appeals to the Commission itself.

   However in view of the fact that the Act has missed, unwittingly perhaps, to stipulate a time-limit for disposal of an appeal or a complaint, which is, as a matter of fact, very much crucial for a common citizen to have faith in the effectiveness of the Commission in redressing their grievances, it is strongly urged that the State Govt. should under the Rules fix a time-limit within which a complaint or an appeal shall be disposed of by the Commission.

5. Under Section 6 of the Act, each PIO and Appellate authority should provide for issuing of an instant or quick acknowledgement receipt to the applicant in response to his letter of application, complaint or appeal, as the case may be, along with a money receipt of the fee received as and where necessary. The Form No. 45 as mentioned in the Orissa Records Manual 1964 for the purpose of routine acknowledgement may suitably be adapted to serve the purpose. Further, the acknowledgement should be transmitted to the applicant through the very mode of communication such as postal, delivery by-hand, fax or email etc., as the case may be through which the applicant himself submitted his case.

6. The Rules should prescribe that a person should pay the different kinds of fees as required under Sections 4, 6 and 7 of the Act through any of the available variety of modes of payment, such as through cash, postal order, Treasury Challan, Non-judicial Stamp paper, Bank Cheque, DD or ATM etc. depending upon the convenience of the applicant.

7. The Rules should provide for the return of the application fee to the concerned Applicant already, if and when his or her application for information is altogether rejected under Section 7(1). There is no point for a citizen losing out his\her hard-earned money just for nothing.

8. The draft Rules should specifically mention that the concerned sections in the Service Rules, Codes and Manuals etc. [for instance, Section 11 under the Orissa Govt. Servants (Conduct) Rules 1959] that punish the acts of disclosure of official information by the Govt. servants, are kept at abeyance until a drastic revision of the said Rules in conformity with the RTI Act 2005 is completed. This is all the more necessary to avoid lingering, endless litigations in the light of the provisions under Section 20(2) of the new Act that hold an act of withholding or of non-disclosure of information by the concerned public servants punishable with disciplinary action under the ‘service rules applicable to him’.

9. Under the Section-4(4), it has been mentioned that “all materials shall be disseminated taking into consideration the cost-effectiveness, local language and most effective method of communication in that local area”. The Orissa Rules under the Act should therefore provide for the sou moto publication of all kinds of information as elaborately listed under Section 4(1b) mostly in the Oriya language since the overwhelming bulk of our population are unable to  read or understand English.

10. The Ministry of Personnel, GOI which is the nodal agency for implementing the RTI Act 2005 in the country as a whole, has published on its website a Template for Information Hand-Book to be prepared and brought out separately by each public authority in both print and electronic media and renewed thereafter at regular intervals mentioning the detail information on 17 items as enlisted under Section 4(1b). It is urged that the Orissa Rules should provide for each public authority from top to ground to keep ready such handbook within 120 days of the enactment of RTI law ( i.e., by 12^th Oct. 2005) and update it thereafter as and when necessary – all to be done in the Oriya language besides English or Hindi for the benefit of the people at large.

11. Section 19(8b) provides for the Information Commission to “require the public authority to compensate the complainant “for any loss or other detriment suffered”. The Orissa Rules should provide for the manner of compensation so decreed, i.e., whether by cash or any other means.

12. Similarly, the Section 19(1) provides for monetary penalty to be realized from the defaulter PIO (i.e. Rs.250/- per day upto a maximum ceiling of Rs.25,000/-). The Rules should specifically provide for the mechanism for collection of such monetary penalty.

13. As per the Section 24(4), a person can request for information to the Intelligence and Security organizations of the State which are otherwise not covered under the general purview of the Act, if the information pertains to allegations of corruption and human rights violation. So the Orissa Rules should provide for the specific mechanism through which a person can access information from these agencies of the State on the above said exceptional grounds.

You are earnestly requested to incorporate the above suggestions, if considered just and legitimate, into the Orissa Draft Rules under RTI Act 2005, and thereafter publish the Draft Rules in a manner widely accessible to the public for inviting their comments thereon, preferably within a fortnight, which, as you might know, is a bounden obligation of the State under the Orissa General Clauses Act.

Looking forward to a favourable consideration of the above proposals.

Yours faithfully

Pradip Pradhan

(On behalf of State-level Consultation on Operalisation of Right to Information Act’ 2005)

Annextures:

1. A compilation of the Oriya and English versions of the RTI Act 2005.

2. A draft note on the points at issue in respect of rule making by the Govt. of Orissa under the RTI Act, issued by Miss. Supriya of Action Aid, Bhubaneswar

3. A Discussion Paper entitled “Towards an Effective operalisation of the RTI Act 2005 in Orissa"