Talk by Chitta Behera

TALK ON RTI ACT AND ORISSA RULES

At the 2^nd day of Annual Meet of Regional Resource Centre, held at Red Cross Bhavan, Bhubaneswar on 26^th March 2006

On the 2^nd day of the Annual Meet of RRC (26^th of March 06), held at Red Cross Bhavan, Bhubaneswar, Sri Chitta Behera, Advisor to Orissa Right to Information Campaign was invited to deliver a talk on the RTI Act and Orissa Rules in the pre-lunch session. Sri R.C.Dash was the facilitator and along with him was seated on the dais was Sri A.V.Swamy, a veteran civil society leader.

Sri Behera in his brief Oriya talk first of all dealt with the various anti-people features of Orissa RTI Rules which were ultra vires the parent RTI Act 2006. A two-page article in Oriya ‘The implementation of RTI Act 2005 in Orissa’ was circulated to the participants, which inter alia described such features, one by one.

Then Sri Behera fervently pleaded that the civil society groups in the State should work concertedly and unitedly for bringing about a drastic overhaul of the Orissa RTI Rules in conformity with the mandates of the parent Act. Demonstrating two different posters made on RTI, one by Parivartan an NGO based in Malkangiri, and another by CASA working in coastal region of Orissa, Sri Behera called upon the participants to notice the vast difference between these two posters, from the perspective of the poor, illiterate and downtrodden people of the State. The first one simply and uncritically advertised the Schedule of Fees made under the Orissa RTI Rules, which every body knows by now to be too exorbitant for the common people, and called upon the people to make an application under the Act and wait for a specified time period for getting any information in lieu of the fees to be aid. The other poster, by contrast, however called upon the people to inspect and access information from a public office, instantly, free of cost and without having to make any application, just by using the Section 4 of the Act, and also to lodge Complaint under Section 18 directly before the Information Commission, without having to fill up any form or pay any appeal fee, if denied the information sought. Then Sri Behera asked, though both these methods are legally valid, how should our civil society groups at the current stage present the whole matter about RTI before the common people? It goes with saying that the cheaper, quicker and easier method of getting the information is always preferable over the method which is costly, time consuming and difficult to comply with.

Sri Behera then narrated his recent experience of visit to several parts of the State especially the districts like Malkangiri, Koraput, Rayagada and Gajapati where the civil society groups have proved successful in getting the information under Section 4 of the Act instantly and free of cost without having to submit any application, as required under Section 6(1) of the Act. In one interesting instance, a veterinary surgeon at Rayagada gave a 32-page document containing information about the monthly and item-wise user fees collected by his office for the year 2004-05, instantly and free of cost to the group seeking information under Section 4. When the group courteously offered to pay at least the zerox charges of the same at the market rate, the surgeon replied that there was no provision under Orissa Rules to collect fees against the supply of information under Section 4(4) of the Act. And those groups consisted of members belonging to lowly sections of population, who were not only poor but illiterate or semi-literate at best. Sri Behera showed the photocopies of some information sheets collected from these districts in the above process. Pointing his finger at Sri G.Damodar, the chief of CURE, an NGO working in Gajapati district, who was incidentally present among the audiences, Sri Behera observed that the CURE had organized a two-day training camp at Parlakhemundi on 23^rd and 24^th of February last in collaboration with CENDERET, where the trainees having been oriented along the lines of Section 4, could approach the various offices for getting the information instantly and free of cost. So if they could get it, why can’t the people all over in the State? asked Sri Behera rhetorically.

Sri Behera then explained, how the Orissa RTI Rules by omitting the fee under Section 4(4) in its Rule 2(1c) has implicitly allowed the people to get all sorts of information under Section 4(1b) of the Act free of cost. Moreover, the Orissa Rules by way of qualifying the Form A as the application form prescribed under Section 6(1) of the Act, has obviated the need on the part of the citizens for making any application for getting the information available as per Section 4 of the Act. Moreover, since the information under Section 4 is suo motu in nature, and is required to be available to the public irrespective of anybody wanting it or not, neither does any question arise for a seeker of information to wait for any lapse of time for the information to reach him/her.

Sri Behera concluded by saying that the adverse nature of Orissa RTI Rules has proved a blessing in disguise, for the simple reason that it compelled the people to read the said document between the lines, so as to explore a cheaper, quicker and easier method of getting the information under RTI Act using default provisions of the Orissa Rules. And now everybody should come forward to use this method and also encourage others to do the same, as a result of which this wholesome method becomes in due course the ruling and universal method for getting the information under RTI Act, not only in Orissa, but also elsewhere in the country. Moreover, the Section 4(2) of the Act also clearly mandates that the public authorities should disseminate so much data required to be disclosed under Section 4(1b) suo motu that there shall be the minimum need for the people to use the other provisions of the Act to obtain any information from a public authority.

Following the talk, some participants including Sri Lalit Kumar Mishra of DLNCC, Cuttack and Sri Ranjit Patnaik of YAAR, Boinda raised some questions, which were clarified by Sri Behera. Then Sri R.C.Dash, the facilitator observed that in view of the constraint of time neither Sri Behera could explain at length other important points concerning the Orissa RTI Rules, nor the participants could grasp the technicalities involved in the discussion made by Sri Behera. So a 2-day or a 3-day training programme should be organized in near future at a suitable place for the conveners of 30 DRCs (District Resource Centres) functioning across the State. And Sri Behera readily agreed to the proposal so mooted by Sri Dash.