Showpiece Legislation
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: October 26, 2012 -
At a time when efforts are being made for introduction of lessons on Right to Education Act, 2005 (RTI Act in short) in the school curriculum to generate awareness on various facets of the transparency law among the people right from an early age, the revelation that hearing for all complaints and appeals filed through RTI before Manipur Information Commission (MIC) has deferred indefinitely since October 17 has come as a great shocker.
Although the main reason for the current impasse has been cited as the failure of the State Government to appoint a Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), the post of which has been lying vacant ever since retirement of its earlier incumbent RK Angousana on September 12, 2011, we strongly felt that the matter should be looked beyond that.
As per Section 15(2) of RTI Act, every State Information Commission should consist of one Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioners, whose number should not exceed 10, and the Chief Information Commissioner as well as the State Information Commissioners are to be appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of a committee consisting of the Chief Minister(who shall also be the Chairperson of the committee), the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and a Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Chief Minister.
While appointment of not just a full-fledged but also a functional Information Commission has always run into troubled-water in Manipur, a recent ruling of Supreme Court of India passed on September 13, 2012, which made appointment of a judicial member and an expert mandatory to hear RTI-related cases, has become a real dampener towards successful implementation of the transparency law not only in the State but also in other parts of the country.
The impact of the apex court ruling has been even more crippling in case of Manipur, where the only remaining member of the Commission has been rendered as good as useless.
Moreover, the Supreme Court directive of making appointment to the post of Chief Information Commissioner from among the retired Chief Justices of a High Court has put the State Government in a fix.
While finding the right person for appointment to the post is a near impossible task in view of the fact that there is only one High Court in the entire 8 North Eastern States, some of the retired judges who could have been eligible for the post have crossed the upper age limit of 65 years.
This brings us to the question over the fate of the Act that seeks 'to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens'.
Doesn't insistence on judiciary background of the panel members in a transparency law speak something about the normally skewed mindset of the judiciary wanting to corner the RTI machinery as well?
If that is so, Right to Information Act would go down in the history as a showpiece of legislation wherein the left hand takes away everything given by the right hand.
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