RIGHT TO INFORMATION (r2i)

The Supreme Court (SC)
sought RBI’s response on two pleas seeking contempt proceedings against the
central bank and its former Governor Urjit Patel for non-disclosure of
information under RTI about some banks. 

A bench headed by Justice L
N Rao issued the notice to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for not disclosing
information about the list of banks on whom certain fines were imposed for
violating some banking rules.

The court has asked RBI to
file a reply within four weeks and listed the matter for hearing in March.

The pleas, filed by Girish
Mittal and Subhash Chandra Agrawal, claimed that RBI and Patel had
“willfully and deliberately” disobeyed the top court’s judgement
asking the central bank to disclose information under the Right to Information
(RTI) Act.

Agrawal had sought complete
information including related documents from RBI on the imposition of fines on
some banks for violating rules.

He had also sought the list
of banks and the default for which show cause notices were issued to them
before the fine was imposed.

Despite the apex court’s
judgement for disclosure of such information, RBI had issued a “Disclosure
Policy” under which it has listed certain information as being exempted
from being disclosed of the RTI Act.

“It is to be noted
that this specific information is similar to what were held not to be exempted
by the Supreme Court,” claimed the plea, filed through lawyer Prashant
Bhushan.

RBI had refused to disclose
such information on the grounds of economic interest and holding such
information in fiduciary relationship with these individual banks.

Such reason is in direct
contempt with this court’s judgment. The information titles which are in
contempt belong to Department of Banking Regulation, Banking Supervision,
Cooperative Banking Regulation/Department of Cooperative Banking Supervision
and Consumer Education and Protection Department.

“This exempted
information under the policy were held to be not exempted by the Supreme Court.
Thus, this exemption leads to contempt of this court’s order,” the plea
said.

The Supreme Court had in
2015 held that RBI should take rigid action against those banks and financial
institutions which have been indulging in “disreputable business
practices” and said it cannot withhold information on defaulters and other
issues covered under the RTI Act.

It had further clarified
that RBI cannot withhold information under the “guise” of confidence
or trust with financial institutions and is accountable to provide information
sought by the general public.

The pleas claimed that the
disclosure policy framed by the RBI headquarters is like an instruction to its
Public Information Officers (PIOs) not to furnish virtually all kinds of
information.

“Under the RTI Act,
2005, it is the PIOs who have been cast with the statutory duty to comply with
the provisions of the RTI Act (as interpreted by the Courts) and it is the PIOs
who face a penalty for non-compliance.

“The policy provides
with different titles of information divided department wise that are not to be
disclosed under the RTI Act, 2005. The reason for non-disclosure of information
by RBI under its Disclosure Policy has been based on economic interest and
fiduciary relation with the individual banks,” the pleas said.

(Source:https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/sc-issues-notice-to-rbi-on-pleas-alleging-violation-of-right-to-information-law-119012501365_1.html
)

                                                 Part B
IRTI ACT, 2005

Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests
for government information.

It is an initiative taken by Department of Personnel and Training,
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions to provide an RTI Portal
Gateway to the citizens for quick search of information on the details of first
Appellate Authorities,PIOs etc. The url of the RTI software is :
https://rtionline.gov.in

Steps to file an RTI

1. For submitting RTI application click on submit
request option.

2. On clicking on submit request option
‘Guideliens for use of RTI ONLINE PORTAL’ screen will be displayed.This screen
contains various guidelines for using RTI online portal. Citizen has to click
on the checkbox ‘I have read and understood the above guidelines’ and then
click on submit button.

3. Then Online
RTI Request Form screen will be displayed. Ministry or Department for which the
applicant wants to file an RTI can be selected from Select
Ministry/Department/Apex body dropdown.

4. Applicant will receive sms alerts in case
he/she provides mobile number. The fields marked * are mandatory while the
others are optional.

5. If a citizen belongs to BPL category, he has to
select the option ‘Yes’ in ‘Is the applicant below poverty line?’ field and has
to upload a BPL card certificate in supporting document field. (No RTI fee is
required to be paid by any citizen who is below poverty line as per RTI Rules,
2012)

6. On submission
of the application, a unique registration number would be issued, which may be
referred by the applicant for any references in future.

7. If a citizen
belongs to Non BPL category, he has to select the option ‘No’ in ‘Is the
applicant below poverty line?’ field and has to make a payment of Rs 10 as
prescribed in the RTI Rules, 2012.

8. ‘Text for RTI
request application’ should be upto 3000 characters. If the text is more than
3000 characters, then the application can be uploaded in supporting document
field.

9. After filling all the details in the form, click on
the ‘make payment’ option.

10. On clicking
the option, Online Request Payment form will be displayed. The payment mode can
be selected in this form, which can be; internet banking, ATM-cum-debit card or
credit card.

11. After clicking
on the ‘Pay’ button, applicant will be directed to SBI payment gateway for
payment. After completing the payment process, applicant will be redirected
back to RTI Online Portal.

12. The applicant
will get an email and sms alert on submission of application.

Note: Only alphabets A-Z a-z
number 0-9 and special characters , . – _ ( ) / @ : & % are allowed in
text for RTI request application.

The application filed through this web portal would reach electronically
to the nodal officer of concerned Ministry/Department, who would transmit the
RTI application electronically to the concerned CPIO.

What to do if your RTI
request is rejected?

There is fundamental difference between RTI Request and RTI Appeal.

RTI Request is filing
application for the first time. Request is made by the citizen to one person
(i.e. PIO) to provide information. This means that it involves only the citizen
and PIO.

RTI Appeal is appeal
before senior officer against decision of PIO. This means that here, a third
person (i.e. Appellate Authority) comes between the citizen and the PIO.

Appeal is only filed when the citizen is not
satisfied with the reply of PIO or PIO rejects citizen’s request for
information.

This means RTI request is application process while RTI appeal is
appellate procedure against decision on RTI application.

Steps for filing RTI First
Appeal

1. For submitting First appeal application, click on
‘submit first appeal’ option. Upon clicking, ‘guidelines for use of RTI online
portal’ screen will be displayed. This screen contains various guidelines for
using RTI online portal.

2. Citizen has to click on the checkbox ‘I have read
and understood the above guidelines’ and then click on submit button.

3. Online RTI first appeal form screen will be
displayed. Applicant has to enter registration number, email ID and security
code in the form.

4. Upon clicking the submit button, online RTI first
appeal form will be displayed. The applicant can then select reason for filing
appeal application from ‘ground for appeal’ dropdown field.

5. Text for RTI first appeal application should be
upto 3000 characters. If the text is more than 3000 characters, then the
application can be uploaded in supporting document field. (As per RTI Act, no
fee has to be paid for first appeal).

6. On submission of the application, a unique
registration number would be issued, which may be referred by the applicant for
any references in future.

The application filed through this web portal would reach electronically
to the nodal officer of concerned Ministry/Department, who would transmit the
RTI application electronically to the concerned appellate authority.

(Source:
https://www.indiatoday.in/information/story/rti-application-online-filing-steps-1440321-2019-01-27
)

                                    Part C IINFORMATION ON
& AROUND

The Supreme Court heard that the Centre had violated provisions of the
Right to Information Act by appointing commissioners who had not even applied
for the posts.

A bench headed by Justice A.K. Sikri took on record the affidavit filed
by RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj and adjourned the matter by a week to enable
the Centre and the states to submit comprehensive status reports on the filling
of vacant posts.

In December the top court had directed the Centre and the states of
Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala and
Karnataka to file status reports mentioning the steps taken to fill up the
vacant posts of information commissioners and also the manner in which the
governments planned to hire.

The court had passed the directions on a PIL jointly filed by Bharadwaj,
Lokesh Batra and others alleging that a large number of vacancies in the
Central Information Commission (CIC) and the state information commissions
showed that the governments wanted to throttle the functioning of the RTI Act,
which was not good for democracy as the main purpose behind the legislation was
to ensure transparency. The petitioners complained that the Centre had issued a
notification dated 4^th January, 2019, on the website of the
department of personnel and training and in some newspapers inviting
applications for four vacant posts in the CIC.

They alleged that the advertisements were not in keeping with the
provisions of the RTI Act, 2005, as they stated that “the salary, allowances
and other terms and conditions of service of the Information Commissioners
shall be as may be specified at the time of appointment of the selected
candidate”.

According to the petitioners this is at variance with the provisions of
the RTI Act that specifies the terms and conditions of service of information
commissioners of the CIC. Sub-sections 2 and 5 of section 13 of the RTI Act
define the tenure and salaries and allowances payable to the chief information
commissioner and the information commissioners at the CIC.

“As per the said section, ‘every Information Commissioner shall hold
office for a term of five years from the date on which he enters upon his
office or till he attains the age of sixty-five years, whichever is earlier,
and shall not be eligible for reappointment as such Information Commissioner’,”
the PIL said.

“13(5) says ‘the salaries and allowances payable to and other terms and
conditions of service of — (a) the Chief Information Commissioner shall be the
same as that of the Chief Election Commissioner; (b) an Information
Commissioner shall be the same as that of an Election Commissioner’,” the
petition added.

According to the petitioners the Centre had deliberately worded the
advertisements vaguely by not specifying the tenure and salaries to undermine
the selection process.

“It would be unreasonable to expect people of eminence to apply for a
post without knowing the terms and conditions of service,” the petitioners
contended.

The petitioners also alleged that some of the four commissioners
appointed by the Centre had not applied for the post.

The petition said the Centre did not upload the list of shortlisted
candidates during the process of appointment.

“…The search committee acted arbitrarily and beyond the mandate to
selectively shortlist individuals who had not even applied… Therefore, the
shortlisting of persons who had not applied is illegal. In the case of the
Chief Information Commissioner, 5 people were shortlisted, 4 of whom had not
even applied. While for information commissioners, 14 persons were shortlisted
of which 2 had not even applied for the post…. One such individual has been
appointed as an information commissioner… Further, minutes of meetings do not
record the rational criteria on the basis of which names were shortlisted,” the
petitioners stated.

The petitioners alleged that Bengal had failed to inform the Supreme
Court about the number of vacancies at the state information commission.

Quoting statistics available on the website of the Bengal information
commission, the petition said several matters filed more than 10 years ago were
heard in 2018. The petition alleged that it would take two years to clear the
backlog and also the matters filed in the intervening period if the commission
continued to dispose of cases at the current rate — 4,500 a year.

Such long waiting periods defeat the purpose of the RTI Act, which is to
ensure information disclosure in a time-bound manner, the petitioners said.

The Andhra Pradesh commission website shows that the panel has been
defunct since May 2017, the petitioners said. No appeals or complaints had been
heard since then. On the web portal of the Andhra government details such as
the names of search committee members and shortlisted candidates and the selection
criteria could not be located, the petitioners said.

Information submitted by the Telangana
commission on affidavit shows that on average it disposes of about 2,000
matters annually, the petitioners said. If the commission functions at the same
rate, it will take six years to just dispose of the 11,762 cases that are
pending as on December 2018. Nine posts of information commissioners are
vacant.

The petitioners said that on the website of the Maharashtra general
administration department no details regarding names of search committee
members and shortlisted candidates and the selection criteria could be located.
Two posts of information commissioners are vacant and 42,000 cases pending.

In Gujarat nine posts of information commissioners are vacant. The
commission was functioning with one chief and one commissioner as of 21^st
January, 2019. Nearly 5,200 cases are pending. Although advertisements for
appointments were issued nearly two years ago, no appointments had been made.

In Kerala five posts of state information commissioners are lying vacant
because of the pendency of some writ petitions in the high court.

In the affidavit filed on behalf of the Karnataka government it is
mentioned that one post of state information commissioner is vacant and that an
advertisement had been put out seeking applicants. However, Karnataka High
Court has stayed the appointment process now.

(Source:https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/govt-breached-rules-in-filling-rti-commission-supreme-court-told/cid/1682549)

In a landmark order, State Information Commission said the Service Book
of an employee is “personal” and
cannot be provided to third party under the Right to Information Act.

Hearing the appeal from Excise inspector Amit Morajkar, SIC Juino
D’Souza expresses serious concern the First Appellate Authority has passed an
Order directing the PIO to provide certified copies of the Service Book of the
third party without even hearing and considering the objections of the ‘Third
Party’.

Also, it is seen that the procedure under section 11 has not been
followed and which includes giving notice to the concerned officer, he said.

The Commission further observed that the FAA in the present case is a
senior IAS officer, holding the post as ‘Commissioner of Excise’ and being a
quasi-judicial authority should have applied his mind and decided the First
Appeal as per 19(1) purely on merits as per the RTI act 2005. The FAA is duty
bound to see that the justice is done.

“The Service Book of an employee is essentially a matter between the
employer and employee more so as it contains important records such as annual
confidential report, family nomination, health status, disciplinary proceedings
taken against the employee and other such information that is Personal in
nature and every Government servant has a right to guard the same,” he
observed.

Further, the order stated, unless larger public interest is shown, the
furnishing of such records can cause prejudice and unwarranted invasion of
privacy to the concerned government servant, besides the information can also
be misused against the employee by unscrupulous elements using RTI as a
cover. 

The SIC cautioned the FAA is accordingly instructed to be more cautious
in future while dealing with information that is ‘Personal’ in nature and which
may cause invasion of privacy and also information falls under the ambit of
exemptions under section 8 of the RTI act 2005, specially the exemption under
section 8(1)(j) of the RTI act 2005.

“With these observations all proceedings in Appeal case stand closed,”
the order states.

(Source:https://www.heraldgoa.in/Goa/Service-book-is-personal-and-does-not-fall under-RTI-SIC/141726.html
)

A record 12.3 lakh RTI applications were filed in 2017-18 with 96 per
cent of them being responded to by government offices, making it the best
performing year since the law was enacted in 2005, the Central Information
Commission data shows.The data from the latest CIC annual report, shared by the
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions shows that during
2017-18, 12.33 lakh RTI applications were received by the registered Central
Public Authorities (PAs).

“This is higher by 3,17,458 or 26 per cent than what was reported
during 2016-17. The Central PAs rejected 4 per cent (63,206) of the RTI
applications processed during 2017-18 showing a downward trend in rejections
which have come down by 2.59 per cent from the 6.59 per cent reported in
2016-17,” it said.The four per cent rejection rate is the lowest since
2005 when the RTI Act was enacted by Parliament giving people the right to get
information from government offices on a payment of  INR 10. The public authorities used
exemptions provided under section 8, section 9, section 11 and section 24 of
the RTI Act to reject plea for information.

Thirty-two per cent of applications were rejected citing other reasons.
Section 8 lists nine subsections covering issues such as national security,
commercial confidence, parliamentary privilege, cabinet papers, personal
information among others under which information can be denied to a person.

Section 9 pertains to information related to infringement of copyright,
section 11 deals with third party information and section 24 is related to security
and intelligence organisations exempted from the RTI Act. The year proved
successful to the efforts of the Central Information Commission that all public
authorities file their annual returns with it which is mandatory under the RTI
Act. On this front, 100 per cent compliance was witnessed during 2017-18 which
is a first since enactment of the transparency law, the data showed.

(Source:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/highest-rti-applications-filed-2017-18-lowest-rejected-since-2005-central-information-commission-data/articleshow/67369101.cms
)

                                                 Part D IRTI ARTICLE

The Supreme Court took note of the arbitrary
and haphazard manner in which the information commissioners in the Central
Information Commission were selected recently and directed the Department of
Personnel & Training (DoPT) to reply by 29^th January, at the
next hearing.

This is a sequel to Supreme Court’s directive to DoPT to upload on its
website details of the process of information commissioner appointments by the
selection and search committee. Thanks to legal intervention by three right to
information (RTI) activists, Anjali Bharadwaj, Amrita Johri and Commodore
Lokesh Batra (retd), these documents, in the public domain now, reveal how the
selection committee violated several norms to appoint the Chief Information
Commissioner and four information commissioners of “their choice.”

Now, it is clear that the appointment of Sudhir Bhargava, an information
commissioner until now in the CIC and four information commissioners—Vanaja N
Sarna (the only lady), formerly, chief of the Central Board of Excise and
Customs (CBEC); Yashwardhan Kumar Sinha, former High Commissioner of India to
the UK; Suresh Chandra, former Union law secretary and Neeraj Kumar Gupta,
secretary in the department of investment and public asset management are not
as per the norms laid out for these
committees as per the RTI Act.

One of the petitioners, Anjali Bharadwaj, pointed out in the Supreme
Court, “the search committee had, in violation of its mandate, short-listed
persons who had not even applied for the post in response to advertisements.
Further, the minutes of the search committee meeting revealed that no rational
criteria were adopted on the basis of which the short-listing was done. Also,
the minutes showed the completely ad-hoc manner of functioning of the search
committee, wherein people who were appointed members of the committee, also
applied for the post and had to be subsequently replaced and were finally even
short-listed. One of the person who has been appointed- Shri Suresh Chandra,
had not even applied for the post.”

The Supreme Court took serious note of all the issues and directed that
the government should file a report on all the issues highlighted by the
petitioners and listed the matter. All the states were also directed to file
their reports before the hearing.

Research scholar and RTI activist, Venkatesh Nayak has closely studied
the documents put up by the DoPT regarding the selection committee’s glaring
bias of appointing present and former government servants as information
commissioners, by throwing to the winds rules under section 12 (5) and 15(5) of
the RTI Act as well as the Supreme Court ruling in the matter of Union of India
vs. Namit Sharma [ AIR 2014 SC 122], which clearly state that eminent persons
from various fields should also be chosen for the posts.

The following is Venkatesh Nayak’s observations
and analysis, along with those of Commodore Batra:

Who were the search committee members?

Only four members of the search committee met on 24^th
November, 2018 in the committee room of the cabinet secretariat to draw up the
shortlist. According to the file notings disclosed by the DoPT, the secretary
I&B and the secretary, expenditure could not attend the meeting.

The selection committee comprising the Prime Minister, his nominee, the
finance minister and the leader of the single largest party in opposition in
the Lok Sabha met on the 11^th of December to finalise their
recommendation to the President of India. Only one name of the appointee was
recommended. In fact, contrary to media reports, the selection of the chief
information commissioner preceded the finalisation of the names of the
information commissioners.

Whom did the search committee shortlist?

 The search committee shortlisted
four candidates for the consideration of the selection committee. All four of
them were retired IAS officers including the newly appointed chief information
commissioner, Sudhir Bhargava. No women were included in this short list. The
list of 68 applicants reveals the names of at least four women. No candidate
from other areas of specialisation mentioned in the RTI Act was shortlisted.
This is a clear breach of the Supreme Court’s directions.

Further, the serving information commissioners, Bimal Julka and D. P.
Sinha who had also applied for the post of the chief information commissioner,
were not even shortlisted. Further, three of the four shortlisted candidates
had not even applied in response to the advertisement for the vacancy of the
chief information commissioner. They included Madhav Lal, a former secretary of
the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises,  Alok Raawat, a former secretary of DoPT’s
sister department, department of administrative reforms and public
grievances,  R P Watal, the current
principal adviser Niti Ayog and former secretary, dept. of expenditure and Dr.
S. K. Nanda, former addl. chief secretary, government of Gujarat.

Observes Nayak, “The search committee meeting minutes indicate that its
members considered names of other serving and retired civil servants who had
not applied at all. This is perplexing to say the least. One of the women
applicants had recently retired as the chief secretary of the government of
Karnataka. How her candidature was given lesser weightage than that of the
former addl. chief secretary of Gujarat who had not even put in his application
in the first place, is a mystery. The minutes of the search committee meeting
are silent on this issue. This raises serious questions about the manner in
which the search committee determined “eminence” in public life.
Neither the committee nor the DoPT have publicised the criteria adopted for
determining “eminence in public life”. Further, how the claims of the
two serving information commissioners were undervalued in comparison to the
three shortlisted retired bureaucrats who had no previous experience of
adjudicating RTI disputes in any information commission is also a mystery that needs
to be cleared.’’

Tenure and terms and conditions of service of
the new appointees

 It may be remembered here that
the government sought to amend the RTI Act mid-2018 to give itself the power to
determine the tenure and the terms and service conditions of the information
commissioners across the country. Despite giving notice of its intention to
introduce a bill to this effect in the Rajya Sabha, the government was not able
to introduce it during the 2018 monsoon session. The documents disclosed by the
DoPT indicate that the government sought to make the changes through the
ordinance route. However, this plan did not materialise and the documents that
the DoPT has disclosed on its website are silent on the underlying causes. The
file notings indicate, the government was planning to reduce the term of the
information commissioners to three years.

The only good part of these appointments:

The selection intimation letters issued to the new appointees indicate
that the terms of appointment are in accordance with the provisions of the RTI
Act, namely five years (including term served as information commissioner)
subject to the maximum age limit of 65. Salaries will be equal to that of the
chief election commissioner and the election commissioners, as the case may be,
in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act. So despite advertising that
the government would determine the tenure and service conditions of the chief
information commissioner and information commissioners, the government has had
to eat humble pie by toeing the line of the law.

Box

How much time did the Committees spend making the final selections?

The documents released by the DoPT reveal only the date, time and venue
of the meetings of the search and the selection committees.

The search committee met on three occasions (twice for shortlisting the candidates for appointing as ICs and once
for shortlisting the candidate for appointment as the chief information
commissioner).

The selection committee met twice. The duration of these meetings is not recorded in the meeting minutes.
However, the minutes indicate that the search committee looked at all eligible
applications (the number is not known- whether all applications received were
found eligible or not) and also discussed names of other serving and retired
civil servants suggested by its members.

Asks Nayak,  “Did the committee
actually spend so much time on the selection process? The government must
urgently answer.’’

(Source:https://www.moneylife.in/article/sc-seeks-explanation-for-arbitrary-appointment-of-information-commissioners/56177.html
)

______________________________________________

RTI Clinic in
February 2019: 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th Saturday, i.e. 9^th,
16^th and 23^rd
11.00 to 13.00 at BCAS premises