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| CIC pulls up 'habitual' information seeker | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 7: In a significant order, the Chief Information Commission (CIC) G R Sufi has asked a habitual information seeker what he has done with the information he obtained under Right to Information Act (RTI) from the last many years ? Some experts say that State Information Commission (SIC) cannot ask such questions to an information seeker, but other section says that a pressure must be built on the people who use RTI for blackmailing people. The CIC has issued a notice to the information seeker and directed him to file a report within 10 days.
One Mohammad Ayub Ayan S/O Abdul Ahad Hakmat a resident of Mahore Reasi who is a habitual information seeker filed a 2nd appeal before State Information Commission (SIC) on 11.11.2014 against the Directorate of Technical Education . The case hearing was fixed on 8.1.2014. Parvaiz Iqbal Khateeb, Director-cum- First Appellate Authority (FAA) Mohammad Shafi Bhat, Joint Director-cum- PIO, Directorate of Technical Education attended the hearing before Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) G R Sufi. The appellant did not attend despite issue of notice from the State Information Commission (SIC). The appellant filed an RTI application before the PIO Directorate of Technical Education on 12.5.2014 received by the PIO on 16.5.2014 seeking certain information. PIO had to pass an order as expeditiously as possible but not later 30 days. But since the required information was not available with the PIO and he had to collect the same from other quarters of Directorate of Technical Education, he invoked Section 6(3) of the J&K State RTI Act, 2009 vide his letter under No: DTE/101/RTI/161/132-36 dated: 23.05.2014 and forwarded the copy of RTI application to the Directorate requesting them to provide the information pertaining to their sections to RTI section of the Directorate well in time for onward transmission of information to the concerned applicant.
Having not received the information within the stipulated time, the information seeker filed first appeal before the FAA on 15.7.2014.
But during the hearing, the FAA denied of having received the first appeal. Therefore, he could not adjudicate the appeal. In the absence of the appellant, it could not be ascertained whether the appellant had served the first appeal before the FAA or not. Onus was on the appellant to prove that first appeal was delivered to the FAA. But since he preferred to remain absent during the hearing at SIC , the fact could not be ascertained by the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) G R Sufi.
"Commission is of the considered opinion that the information seeker filed RTI application before the PIO and wrongly submitted that he had filed the first appeal which the Director-cum-FAA Technical Education has also refuted before this Commission. The information seeker was served notices of hearing on 03.12.2014 and 08.01.2015 but he did not appear before the Commission during these two hearings. He failed to put his view point and provide any evidence or assistance to the Commission. Even though, the PIO Directorate of Technical Education has furnished the information to him" reads the SIC order.
The order further reads as: " In view of the above findings, Commission does not find any reason to pass any directions in this case to the PIO and FAA of Directorate of Technical Education J&K. The information seeker is advised to remain present during the hearings, as and when he is asked to do so in order to lead evidence in support of grounds of appeal. It is also found that the appellant namely Shri Mohammad Ayub Ayan has been using his right to information under this Act since the introduction of this Act in the State and establishment of the Commission. He has filed scores of applications before the numerous public authorities and has received information against almost all the applications.
The information taken from the government records runs in hundreds and thousands of pages. He has been particularly concentrating for this purpose in his native districts of Ramban and Reasi and has also filed number of applications with Revenue, Estates, Education and other departments in other districts also. He has also approached the Commission in number of appeals and complaints which have been disposed of by the Commission by ordering for the disclosure of the information. His attention was several times invited to the preamble of the J&K State RTI Act, 2009 which lays down the purpose and rationale of the right to information. The essence and rationale is to "secure access to the information under the public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority".
Thus the exercise of this right is not a free will or a hobby. Therefore, the Commission would once again require the appellant to give the details of various kinds of information received by him from various government and semi government departments, agencies and institutions and also to report whether he has made any reference to State Accountability Commission, State Vigilance Commission and State Vigilance Organization or any other competent authority. This information must reach to this Commission within ten days from the receipt of this order. If no information is received, the Commission would take further action in this regard keeping in view the Hon'bl Madras High Court decision in a judgement titled P. Jayasankar v/s Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu in WP Nos: 3776, 3777 and 3778 of 2013." "Information Commission cannot ask such questions as it is not mandated to ask information seeker what he or she did with the information " says Sajad Ahmad an RTI activist . On the other hand Advocate Fayaz Ahmad says that a pressure has to be built on blackmailers and unscrupulous elements who misuse RTI. |
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