A Workshop of Civil Society Groups, Panchayatiraj Representatives and Individuals hailing from different parts of the district was held at Town Hall, Jajpur on 16.10.05 to review the Govt. of Orissa’s recently announced Rules under the RTI Act 2005 and suggest an alternative course of action for it’s necessary reforms if felt necessary at the moment.

After a note of welcome by Mr. Prasant Sahoo, Convener of the event, Shri Pradip Pradhan, Convener of Right to Food Campaign, Orissa appraised the house on the latest developments that have emerged from the objectionable, defect-ridden Rules made by the Govt. of Orissa under the Act.  Mr. Chitta Behera, a social scientist, in course of his talk specifically pointed out ultra vires provisions contained in the Orissa RTI Rules vis-à-vis the RTI Act.

Mr. Sarat Ch. Biswal, Additional PD, DRDA, Jajpur and a Public Information Officer of his office spoke on his perception of the various provisions of the Act and also briefed the house about the steps taken at their level for operationalising the Act and Rules.

Mr. Mayadhar Nayak, an eminent Trade Union and political leader, Dr. Purusottam Biswal, a freelance columnist and Mr. Gopinath Mohapatra, a Social Activist were among the speakers who gave their opinion on Orissa RTI Rules.

A unanimous decision was taken to intimate the newly appointed Orissa Information Commissioners  who are expected to hear the complaint and appeals (vide section-18,19 and 25 of the Act) about the commissions and omissions in the Orissa Rules and request them to give their decision on the same in the interest of the smooth implementation of the RTI Act in the State.

Further it was resolved to send the copy of the said Memorandum to the Chief Minister, Minister of State for Information and Public Relations and Speaker of Orissa Legislative Assembly for their kind perusal and appropriate action. The Resolution contained the following suggestions.

1. The RTI Act in its section-7(5) hat categorically said that no fee shall be charged from the BPL persons for application, cost of providing the information and cost of the print or electronic medium. But the Orissa Rules have allowed the exemption of application fee only {vide Rule-4(1)}, while depriving the BPL families of their lawful right to avail the exemption of other two fees. This very provision made under Orissa RTI Rules is not only ultravires of the mother law but also reflects die-hard, anti-poor mindset of the Govt. of Orissa.

2. The sections 27 and 28 of RTI Act have categorically specified the four kinds of fees, namely under section4(4), section-6(1) and sections 7(1) and 7(5) beyond which no appropriate or competent authority can impose any other fees. But the Orissa Rules have made an ultravires provisions in prescribing such extraneous fees as fees for 1^st and 2^nd appeal and inspection of documents (vide schedule-4) and also in prescribing the cost of damage under Rule-10 and deposit of expenditure for production of witness or documents under the Rule-12. These extraneous fee provisions need to be struck off.

3. The mode of induction of the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioner by the committee formed for the purpose is in violation of the provisions made under section 4 1(c) and (d) of the Orissa RTI Act which bind a Public Authority to publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing the decisions which affect public and provide the reasons for its administrative and quasi-judicial decisions to the affected persons. The Act further stipulates that such information must be “disseminated widely and in such form or manner which is accessible to the public”{ vide section4(3)}- a provision which has also been let down by the sudden  and arbitrary manner of the appointment of the Chief Information Commissioner. So it is suggested that the Govt. of Orissa as well as the appointment committee which is also a public authority under the RTI Act [vide section 4(1b)] should publicise the nominees for the said post and invite the public views thereon before making the final notification of the constitution of the Commission in the Official Gazette.

4.  The section 20(2) of the Act says that disciplinary action in terms of the service rules shall be taken against the defaulter PIO if the latter persistently fails in his/her duty to provide the required information to the public. The Orissa Rules under the Act should provide the specific kind of disciplinary action and modes of its execution.

5. The section 26(1a) of the RTI Act obliges the appropriate Government to develop and organize educational programme to advance the understanding of the public, in particular of the disadvantaged  communities as to how to exercise the rights contemplated under the Act. Except the misplaced advertisement in the local news papers of a truncated version of the Orissa RTI Rules, no body knows what the Govt. has done to fulfill the above mandatory provisions.

6. The 11-member Core Committee of the Govt. of Orissa set up for implementation of the RTI Act in their 1^st meeting held on 22.8.05.has decided inter alia that Rs 10 lakh shall be placed with Gopabandhu Academy of Administration for the purpose of training and a tentative budget of 1.16 crores would be allotted for implementation of the Act. The detail expenditure of such earmarked amount of money should be publicized as required under section 4(1b-xi) of the Act

7. The core committee in the above said meeting had also decided inter alia to hold a special training programme for NGOs and Civil Society Organisations at Bhubaneswar. The Govt. of Orissa should publicize the detals thereof, if any such programme were at all held and the detail expenditure incurred theron, as required under Section 4(1b) of the RTI Act.

8. Abolish Rule-10(Calculation of cost of Damage), Rule-12(Deposit of Expenditure) and  Rule-13 (Realisation of penalties and damage) from Orissa RTI Rules, since these are outrageously ultravires of the mother Law i.e., the Right to Information Act 2005.

9. (A) Abolish the provision made under Sub-Rule 2 of Rule-4 under Orissa RTI Rules that the Applicant has to satisfy the PIO about his/her identity before his/her application is considered.

(B) Abolish the provision made under Sub-rule2(e) on the “identity” of an applicant defined as “an evidence to show the citizenship like an electoral photo identity card/passport or any other document which can satisfy the authority about the citizenship of the person”, which is ultravires of the section-6 of the RTI Act.

10. (A) The Form-A ( Application for Information) is too long, complex and over-demanding one, which should be reduced to five to six columns only. The Column-2 asking for Father/ Spouse name, Column-3 asking for permanent address and Column-4 asking for particulars in respect of identity of the Applicant and Column-8( Is this information not made available by the Public Authority) are absolutely redundant and ultravires too vis-à-vis the section6(2) of the RTI Act and should therefore be struck off from the form-A.

(B) The Application Form should be made optional and no application for information should be rejected as provided currently under Form-C on the ground that the Application Form has not been filled up “complete in all respect”, in view of Section 7(9) of the RTI Act.

11. The Form-B should mention the detail break up of  the fees that a citizen has to pay, as required under the section 7(3) of the RTI Act.

12. The Application Fees for 1^st Appeal and 2^nd Appeal are ultravires of the sections 27 and 28 of the RTI Act in which the specific kinds of fees allowable under the Act have been mentioned. Moreover, the Form-D and Form-E made for the purpose of making appeals do not contain a Form for acknowledgement receipt to be issued to citizen-applicant on submission of his/her appeal.

13. (A) A serious technical incongruity has been noticed between Form-G (Cash register)  where various modes of payment such as Challan, Bank Draft and Cash have been mentioned at Column-4, whereas the Schedule on fees allows only treasury challan and cash.  It is suggested that various other modes payment such as postal order, money order, Bank cheque and ATM should be allowed too for the convenience of citizens at large.

(B) Another serious case of incongruity is that while the Rules 4(1) allows the electronic mail system for the applicant, the Form-A containing the Application Form omits to mention it and limits the correspondence to post or person.

14. The various kinds of fees as prescribed under the schedule are unbearably exorbitant giving the impression, as if the people of Orissa are richest in India and have the highest  paying capacity to afford them. The amount of said fees should be drastically reduced in compatibility with the Section-4(4) and Section-7(5) of the RTI Act.

15. The Orissa RTI Rules should provide for the following matters as mandated under the RTI Act.

1. Transfer of Application for information from one PIO to another PIO when the information asked for is available with the latter, as required under section 6(3) of the Act.

2. Provision for the PIO to help the persons unable to write and persons sensorily disabled to access and inspect the documents in the matter of application writing and inspection as required under section-6(1b) and Section-7(4) of the Act.

3. The provision for procedure and forms necessary for issuing notices to the third party in connection with disposal of an application for third party information, as required under section-11 of the Act.

4. The provisions for serving the severable information by the PIO to the Applicants as required under Section 10 of the Act.

5.  Provision for inspection of public offices by the citizens as required under the “Explanation” appended to the Section 4(4) of the Act.

6. Provision for application for information to security and intelligence agencies of the state pertaining to “corruption and human rights violation” as required under section 24(4) of the Act.

16. In view of the absence of a time limit for disposal of 2^nd appeal by the Information Commission, the Orissa RTI Rules should provide for the same.

17.  As per section 24 of the Orissa General Clauses Act-1937, every rule made under the Act should be published widely in various media to elicit public opinion thereon. Again, the Section 4(1b-vii) of the RTI Act says that “every Public Authority should have an arrangement for consultation with or representation by the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation thereof.”.  But the arbitrary manner in which the recent notification of the Orissa RTI Rules has been made just on the verge of the final enforcement of the Act violates the above two statutory obligations. So the Govt. of Orissa and all competent authorities in the state should place their respective draft rules under the RTI Act in the public domain for opinion by the latter, following which the same could be finally notified in the gazette of Orissa.

ON BEHALF OF THE WORKSHOP ON RTI ACT AT JAJPUR, ORISSA