Food for thought
"Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle.... Goats are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions". Babasaheb.Dr.B.R.Ambedkar.
Kudos to State and Central Government SC/ST employees District co- ordination committee, Pudukottai for being instrumental in bringing a direction to public authorities by CIC that the mandatory information to be made available all the Government websites. A similar action by various Association of state and central public sector under taking would bring truth against the discrimination of SC/STs by various ministries and department. Such actions required especially in education, employment and welfare matter of SC/STs.
The Association representing nationalized banks should set an example by bringing the truth through RTI that the nationalized and private banking and financial sectors were neglecting the orders issued by government to uplift the SC/STs in giving loans and employment and promotion.
The RTI is a powerful weapon in the hands of SC/ST welfare Associations to get the truth of discrimination unleashed against SC/ST by bureaucrats. The Association office bearers even inspect the rosters maintained by various departments and ministry, to avoid victimization by the bureaucrats against the office bearers of SC/ST Association of particular department and ministry, the association office bearers of different department and ministry can interchange the inspection reservation roster work among themselves.
copy of letter written to CIC.
From: A.Sundararaman,
Dt co-ordinator
State and Central Government SC/ST
Employees Dt co-ordination committee.
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Illam,
23,Chidambaram Nagar,
Tamilnadu,
Pudukottai-622 001.
TO:- The Chief Information commissioner,
August Kranti Bhavan,
Bhikaji Cama Place,New Delhi-110 066.
Sub:-Publishing of Rosters in the Department Website.
Respected Sir,
This is regarding publishing information on reservation rosters in departmental websites. The department of posts maintaining circle and regional level websites for the benefit of general public as well as staff working in the department. The Right to information act is stipulated that all public authority maintaining all its records shall be made available in the websites.
The purpose of publishing this information on the websites that the public have minimum resort to the use of RTI act to obtain information. This Association is observed that reservation roster being a record maintained at various level of the department to monitor the percentage of reservation given to SC/ST/OBC and PH in various cadres appointment and promotion is not published in the websites.
To promote the transparency and accountability in maintaining the rosters ,We request you to consider publishing the reservation rosters maintained by various authorities in the Departmental websites so as to bring the transparency in implementation reservation orders properly and in it is maintained in diligent manner as and when any recruitment made and promotion resorted to.
Since the act came into effect for more than 5 years the department of Posts is yet to publish the reservation rosters in the regional and circle websites. It is bring to your Kind notice that as per the following sections of RTI act-2005,
4(1) (b)(V) “Every public authority shall-Publish with in one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this act, the rules, regulations ,instructions ,manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions”.
4(2) “It shall be a constant Endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with requirements of clause (b) of sub section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communication, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information.
4( 3) for this purposes of sub section (1) ,every information shall be disseminated widely and in such form and manner which is easily accessible to the public.
We hope that the department will take sincere effort to publish the reservation rosters in all websites maintained by it as per the above RTI act.
Date:2309.2010
Place:Pudukotai Yours faithfully
Sd….
/A.Sundararaman/
Copy to:- 1.Sri Brahampal ,GS,AIPTSC/ST EWA,New Delhi
2.Sri Kumaravel,CS,AIPTSCSTEWA,Chennai-
3.The National commission for SC
4.The National commission for ST
5.The Secretary ,Departmentof personnel & Training,New Delhi
7.The Secretary Department of Posts,NewDelhi.
Copy Dirction Issued by CIC on 15.11.2009.
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
New Delhi
CIC/AT/D/10/000111 Dated 15.11.2010
Implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act
Direction to Public Authorities u/s 19(8)(a) of RTI Act
Commission has been noting in its decisions that although the RTI Act has now been in place for five years, a key element of the law ― voluntary disclosure by public authorities, enshrined in Section 4 of the Act ― has not been fully implemented in letter and spirit. There are, no-doubt, departments and public authorities, which are more transparent and open than the others, but most do not conform to the matrix of disclosure set-out in Section 4.
2. Transparency has not become such a good idea because of the presence of the RTI Act, but it is good because transparency promotes good governance. Of the records, documents and files held by public authorities, a very large part can be made available for inspection, or be disclosed on request to the citizens, without any detriment to the interest of the public authority. This has not been done, or has still not been systematically addressed, largely because of an intuitive acceptance of secrecy as the general norm of the functioning of public authorities. This mental barrier needs to be crossed, not so much through talks and proclamation of adherence to openness in governance, but through tangible action ― small things, which cumulatively promote an atmosphere of openness.
3. Section 4 of the RTI Act randomly lists out some of these steps / actions.
4. The following aspects need to be noted:-
(i) Secrecy in the functioning of the public authority should be the exception and not the norm, since as stated in the Preamble to the RTI Act, transparency of information is vital to a functioning democracy.
(ii) Oftentimes public authorities are unable to decide on what records and documents to be made public, or what parts of its action to be made open, mostly because of poor record-management-practices, which make it difficult to take focused decisions about what records to be made routinely available to the public.
Therefore, the first step towards promotion of transparency in the functioning of the public authority should be an improvement in the record-management practices. Section 4 lists-out the ingredients of record management in some detail.
(iii) When the record management practices are fully established in the public authority, the next step is to categorize the documents in terms of what can be disclosed voluntarily and what cannot be voluntarily disclosed.
The second category could be some sort of a negative list ― a list of documents which a public authority is not in a position to bring into the open-category straightaway, but would examine its disclosure under RTI Act.
(iv) The record-management practice, as much as possible, should be technologically driven. Technology should be used
for efficient and wide dissemination of information subject to availability of resources and know-how.
This is an additional requirement to the proper record-management practice commended by Section 4.
(v) While Section 4 enjoins public authorities to perform certain tasks for voluntary disclosure of information within 120 days of the commencement of the Act, i.e. on 12th October, 2005, it allows them “reasonable time” for putting in place a good record management practice supported by technology.
(vi) Section 4 also enjoins Public Authorities to update the proactive disclosures every year.
5. The time has come now when the public authorities must start a sustained drive to inform their governance practices with transparency and to take the series of small steps required to put in place a system which promotes it. Section 4 provides only a window to possible actions and, much more will need to be done in order to achieve the type of goals which are envisaged.
6. Therefore, by powers vested in the Commission by Section 19(8)(a)
of the RTI Act, we direct that the obligations set out in Section 4 of the
Act be discharged by the public authorities as per the time-limits set out
against each activity
I. Record Management Obligation:
Section 4(1) states that every public authority shall —
a) maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated;
This translates into the following action points:-
1. Catalogue records and index them for easy dissemination and disclosure.
2. Computerize records in a phased manner subject to availability of resources.
Similar obligation is also cast on public authority by Section 4(1)(b)(vi) and Section 4(1)(b)(xiv), which enjoin publishing within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act,—
(vi) a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control;
(xiv) details in respect of the information, available to or held by it, reduced in an electronic form;”
It is directed that all public authorities implement the above obligations within 6 months (except for no.2 above).
II. Personnel related details and functions of public authorities:
The relevant portions of Section 4 calls upon public authorities to carry out the following:-
“b) publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act,—
(i) the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties;
(ii) the powers and duties of its officers and employees;
(iii) the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability;
(iv) the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions;
(v) the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions;
(vii) the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or representation by, the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation thereof;
(viii) a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public;
(ix) a directory of its officers and employees;
(x) the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, including the system of compensation as provided in its regulations;
(xi) the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made;
(xii) the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries of such programmes;
(xiii) particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations granted by it;
(xv) the particulars of facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, if maintained for public use;
(xvi) the names, designations and other particulars of the Public Information Officers;
(xvii) such other information as may be prescribed; and thereafter update these publications every year;”
7. Public authorities were to have implemented these obligations within 120 days of the coming into force of the RTI Act on 15th June, 2005. In our experience, the action in this regard has been rather tardy. It is time that these directives of the law are fully implemented in a systematic manner through time-bound action. Commission, therefore, directs that these actions as ordained above shall be completed by all public authorities within a period of 120 days from the date of this order.
8. Commission further directs that,
(i) The information in compliance with Section 4 obligation by public authorities shall be uploaded on a portal to be set up exclusively for this purpos
e by the CIC
(a) to oversee the implementation of the Section 4 obligation by public authorities, and to apprise the top management of its progress.
(b) to be the interface for the CIC regarding the progress of (a).
(c) help promote congenial conditions for positive and timely response to RTI-requests by CPIOs, deemed-CPIOs.
(d) to be a contact point for the public in all RTI-related matters.
(iii) Names of the Transparency Officers shall be communicated to the Commission by public authorities.
9. Commission wishes to emphasise, that as laid-down in Section 4(2) of the RTI Act, it should be the constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub-section (1) to provide as much information suo-motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information.
10. Unless the key requirements of Section 4 are fully met by the public authorities ‘suo-motu’, the objectives of this Act as enshrined in
its Preamble and Section 4 itself cannot be realized. Hence this directive.
11. Each Ministry or Department shall forward the directives to Public Authorities under their jurisdiction exercisable under Section 25(2) of RTI Act, 2005.
( A.N. Tiwari )
Chief Information Commissioner
(Annapurna Dixit) (Satyananda Mishra) (M.L. Shjarma)
(Shailesh Gandhi) (Sushma Singh) (Deepak Sandhu)
Central Information Commissioner Central Information Commissioner Central Information commissioner
Authenticated By :-
( Aakash Deep Chakravarti )
Joint Secretary(Law) & Additional Registrar
