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Maharashtra Information Commission: Quick turnaround
Maharashtra’s information commission has set a blistering pace to tackle pending backlog, with a top official clearing a staggering 6,000 cases last year Anyone else would have thrown up their hands in despair on seeing over seven lakh right to information (RTI) applications at Maharashtra’s exceedingly busy information commission, but not the panel’s chief Ratnakar Gaikwad who took up the challenge and ensured that the cases were expedited. Ratnakar Gaikwad, the 64-year-old former Maharashtra chief secretary and IAS officer of 1975 batch, inherited a backlog of 4,074 cases of three years when he was named state chief information commissioner (CIC) in 2012. Within a month of joining, the bureaucrat came up with an ingenious solution – templates that helped speed up work. Gaikwad prepared 120 templates that fit a majority of the cases. It broadly covered certain legal provisions, and similar types of cases in which the facts are the same but the information may be different
RTI appeals pendency up 96 per cent in Pune as SIC shuttles between the city and Nashik
Of the seven SIC benches in the state, the ones in Nashik, Aurangabad and Amravati have been lying vacant.
Over the last few months, pendency of second appeals with the Pune bench of the State Information Commissionerate has seen a whopping 96 per cent rise. With 8,294 second appeals pending before it as of July 2016, the Pune bench has the second highest pendency in the state, the first being Amravati SIC bench having 8,340 appeals pending before it.
The SIC benches are practically the last stage of appeals for information seekers under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. Second appeals are filed after the information seeker has exhausted all efforts to obtain information with government offices. SICs have the power to fine/summon and order for information to be provided to the applicant.
At present, Maharashtra has seven SIC benches. State’s chief information commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad is based in Mumbai.
Maharshtra government: Public Information Officers can’t answer RTIs seeking information on them
The onus of taking decisions about such applications has now been given to the public authorities or other public information officers (PIOs) and appellate authorities (AA).
In a move to address the long standing complaints of Right to Information (RTI) users, the state government has issued a circular which has now debarred public information officers (PIOs) and appellate authorities (AA) from hearing or taking decisions on RTI applications which seek personal information about them. The responsibility of taking decisions about such applications has now been given to the public authorities or other PIOs/AAs.
PIOS and AA are designated by the RTI Act to take decisions about the application requests from information seekers. In case of information related to PIO or AA, the decision is taken by those officials themselves. RTI activists had pointed out how this was in contravention to the set norms of jurisprudence. Judges are often known to refuse hearing of cases if they feel there would be a conflict of interest in them — “Not before me” — is the commonly used term in such cases.
The recent notification issued by the General Administrative Department (GAD) of the state government, other than barring the PIOS/AAs from hearing such applications, have issued several other directives. Such applications are to be duly registered and separate records should be kept of them. As mentioned above, the new notification has mandated that such applications would be heard by the public authority (this usually is the head of the establishment) or other PIOs/AAs.
(Source : News articles from Indian Express)
