State Information Commission (SIC) defunct for a year
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 21 2013 :
The State Information Commission (SIC) set up to cater to infor-mation sought by people from all Government departments barring Home Department is now defunct for almost a year.
The Right to Information Act was first implemented in Manipur on June 15, 2005 following which people were allowed to obtain whatever information they wish to elicit from Govt departments.
However the commission went defunct since October last year and subsequently all channels of obtaining information from Government de- partments have been blocked.
According to information received from the defunct SIC, the commission became defunct because of the State Government's failure to appoint the State Chief Informa- tion Commissioner and the State Information Commissioner.
The last State Chief Information Commissioner RK Angousana retired from service on September 12, 2012.On March 31 this year, State Information Commissioner Ch Birendra too retired.
According to a Supreme Court guideline, a commission should not be entrusted to a commissioner alone.
Every commission should have legal experts.
In the absence of the State Chief Information Commissioner and the State Informa- tion Commissioner, all the functions and activities of the State Information Commission were brought to a grin- ding halt.
Till the time the commission was functional, there were 60 pending complaint cases and eight appeal cases filed by different applicants.
Although the commission is now defunct, people have not stopped filing applications.
At present, three De- puty Registrars are engaged in collection of applications even though the commission is unable to take up any cases with regard to any of the applications.
Even as the commission has been receiving applications, no further process can be initiated on account of the absence of commissioner and chief commissioner.
The Deputy Registrars often find themselves in embar- rassing situations when some applications demanded written statements about the com- mission's inability to process their applications because of the absence of commissioners.
RTI Act was enacted at the initiative of the UPA Government with the primary objectives of making Government functions, projects and programmes transparent and mitigate the issue of corruption.
The State Government too lauded the Act when it was first enacted.
One RTI applicant told The Sangai Express that there were instances when Government officials attempted to project RTI applicants in wrong light.
Once an RTI application was filed, Government officials would come searching for the applicant.
Because of such coercive tactics there were many cases when RTI applicants either withdrew their applications or did not pursue their applications any further under some sort of understanding with Government officials.
When the commission came to know about this secret deals, it was made compulsory for all Government officials to give their reply once a case has been taken up in response to an RTI application.
The commission also kept a copy of the written responses given by Government offices.
In several cases of RTI application, the Commission made many Government departments pay compensation or fines.
In short, the commission was working very scrupulously, added the RTI applicant.