To
Chief Orissa Information Commissioner,
Government Guest House, Bhubaneswar
SUB: Complaint before the State Information Commission under
Section 18 of the Right to Information Act 2005- reg.
Sir,
1) As far as I know, various political leaders, print and electronic media and civil society groups including Orissa Right to Food Campaign along with several conscious citizens from across the State have made their well-considered representation by post, personal meeting and email to your august office for exercising your power under Section 25 of Right to Information Act 2005 for recommending a thoroughgoing revision of the ultra vires and anti-people Orissa RTI Rules in correspondence with the mother law.
2) But to my dismay, you have not responded to any of the representations so made till date. Even you have not cared to acknowledge the receipt of the representations made, a fact which goes to say that the entire Commissionerate is functioning like any other Government agency which let alone responding to a representation by a lay citizen within a deadline, doesn’t have the courtesy of issuing an acknowledgement receipt thereof.
3) To the best of my knowledge Mrs.Aruna Roy and her team on behalf of NCPRI (National Campaign for People’s Right to Information) and MKSS ( Majdoor Kishan Shakti Sangathan) Rajasthan have made both a verbal and written representation to your Commission during 3rd week of December 05, advocating appropriate revision in the Orissa RTI Rules in consonance with the letter and spirit of RTI Act 2005. But the people of State and outside are yet to know the response of your Commission to the said representation made by Mrs.Roy and her colleagues.
4) On the contrary, I have been watching over a period of time that both Chief State Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner are making whimsical pronouncements in the media and public platforms on RTI Act 05 in general and Orissa RTI Rules in particular, as a result of which the people are getting confused about both. In nutshell, the State Chief Commissioner has been striving his level best, illegally though, to add glitter to the Orissa RTI Rules which is in essence out and out unjust and illegitimate, and the State Commissioner has been subjectively misinterpreting certain provisions of the mother Act to project the otherwise unique and historic law in poor light before the people. I have documented and dealt with certain cases of such aberrations committed by both of you, that came to my notice either through media or through personal interaction, in the enclosed 8-page Article in Oriya.
5) I request you to do the following in response to this representation of mine-
i) Please treat this representation as a Complaint under Section 18 of RTI Act 05 and let the undersigned complainant be informed by way of an acknowledgement receipt or otherwise about the deadline within which this Complaint shall be disposed of.
ii) Since the RTI Act has mandated that the Commission shall function as a Civil Court in the matter of disposing a Complaint (under Section 18) or a 2nd Appeal (Under Section 19), it is desired that the Commission should summon all the concerned parties including the Government of Orissa, the undersigned and all other co-complainants, who have previously made representations questioning the rationale of the Orissa RTI Rules to submit the necessary evidence, at the earliest,
iii) Till the present Complaint is finally disposed of, the Commissioner couple should refrain from making biased pronouncements in public as against the RTI Act or in favour of the Orissa RTI Rules, which they have been doing illegally so far.
Awaiting an acknowledgement receipt of this complaint from your office,
Yours faithfully,
Chitta Behera, dated 15th January 2006
4A Jubilee Tower, Choudhury Bazar, Cuttack-9, PH:0671-2623518(residene),
Mobile: 9861091455, Emails: chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in, chittabehera@rediffmail.com
Encl: An Oriya write-up ‘Orissa Suchana Commission goes wayward’
CC: 1) Governor Orissa, Raj Bhavan, Bhubaneswar
2) Chief Minister Orissa, Bhubaneswar
3) Minister of State for Information and Public Relations, Orissa
4) Speaker, Orissa Legislative Assembly, Bhubaneswar
5) Secretary, Ministry of Personnel, Pension and Public Grievances, Govt of India, New Delhi