Maj (Retd) P M Ravindran2/18, 'Aathira', Kalpathy-678003

Tele: 0491-2576042; E-mail: pmravindran@gmail.com

RTI/comp-ker gov-ksic-040108 04 Jan 2008

Mr R L BhatiaGovernor of KeralaRaj BhavanThiruvananthapuram

STATUS OF PETITION TO REMOVE THE STATE INFORMATION COMMISSIONERS

1. Further to my petition, reference RTI/comp-ker gov-ksic-071107 dated 07 Nov 2007.

2. It is with utmost concern that I am placing on record the fact that I have not even

received an acknowledgement to my petition sent almost two months back. Of the two

complaints to the CM, I had quoted in the above petition, the first one, of 07 May 2007,

has been routed to the Secretary, Kerala State Information Commission through the

General Administration Dept. For all practical purposes it can be considered to have been

dumped into the black hole from which nothing has ever been reported to have returned.

If this is the state of affairs with lawful complaints made to the highest authorities of the

land then one can only look at naxalites and maoists as the new generation freedom

fighters and pray that they choose their targets right and succeed in their missions. With

the bureaucratic strangle hold even in your office, I cannot even believe if you have even

seen the petition I had submitted earlier. Hence this effort to write to you in person.

3. While reiterating all the charges contained in my petition of 07 Nov 2007, the

following needs to be added:

3.1. Failure to appoint Assistant Public Information Officers at sub-division/sub-

district level as mandated by Sec 5(2) of the RTI Act. The Commission which

should have entertained complaints about such lapses of other public authorities

in the state, itself failing to comply with the law speaks volumes about the

ulterior motives of the Commission. And the audacity of directing APIOs at RDO

offices not to accept applications/appeals not only to the Commission but also to

the public authorities whose APIOs have been designated at such offices should

be considered a willful crime that merits the most serious punishment. And now

in their orders in AP 452/2007/SIC dated 21 Dec 2007 (photostat copy attached

herewith, for ready reference), they have gone further and claimed that

submission of applications/appeals through such APIOs is not in accordance with

the law (please see para 4(i) of the order). It needs to be highlighted here that the

Commission has failed to take cognizance of two facts:

3.1.1. That the KSPCB has not published any information about its APIOs at

the sub-district or sub-divisional level and 3.1.2. The commission has no jurisdiction to decide how it has received

documents submitted to it so long as they have been submitted and have

been received by them.

continued overleaf…

3.2. Further, the Commission has also made malicious deductions in para 4(ii) of the

above orders. This is regarding the mode of payment of cost. While the public

authorities may find it convenient to accept payment by certain modes, the citizen

has all the options available to him as provided by the rules and payment into the

treasury is one of them and cannot be considered unacceptable. Also, payment

through the treasury saves considerable cost to the citizen since the cost of

getting a DD is exorbitant, considering that even for making a DD of Rs 2.00 the

cost of DD could be as high as Rs 25.00!

3.3. The information commissioners, especially the Chief Information Commissioner,

is spreading false information through the media and indirectly intimidating the

public. A report titled ‘Officials being threatened in the name of RTI’ that appeared

in the Madhyamam daily of 12/11/2007 stated that while inaugurating the state

convention of Human Rights Forum of India at Kochi, the CIC said that the public

should not try to ride rough shod over officials. It is a fact that for all the pro-

citizen nature of the Act, it still caters for him/her only to seek information and on

failing to get such information, seek redressal through appeals. The only entity

capable of exploiting the Act is the Commissioner wherein he/she can literally

bribe his/her way to unaccounted wealth by refusing to penalise the defaulting

PIOs/authorities as mandated by the Act and accepting a share of the penalty

amount as bribe. In this context it may even be necessary right now to get an

investigation done in the cases where the present commissioners have disposed of

cases in violation of the provisions of the Act.

4. On 18 Dec 2007, fed up with the arbitrary decisions and wayward conduct of the

Commission, human rights and other activists in Palakkad staged a dharna outside the

venue when the CIC visited here to participate in a function at the Town Hall annex.

Within 15 minutes of the arrival of the CIC at the venue a team of police under a Dy SP

swooped down and arrested 13 activists, removed them to the police station, detained

them there for more than 2 hours and released them on bail! This in a state where hartals

disrupt public life, violating fundamental rights, every other day in spite of even repeated

court orders on the subject! I have cited this instance just to highlight the fact that the

bureaucracy is bent on subverting the first legislation of free India that practically

recognizes this as a democratic state.

5. I am also enclosing herewith a copy of a note written by Col (Retd) N R Kurup on

the atrocities of the Kerala State Information Commission.

Hoping that necessary action will be taken to punish the information commissioners for

their abject failure to fulfill their duties and blatant abuse of authority,

Yours truly,

(P M Ravindran)

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Save paper, save a tree!

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