Central Information Commission
12th Annual Convention
On Right to Information
6 December 2017
Seminar on Implementation of Right to Information Act 2005
Suo Motu Disclosures under the RTI Act
Lalduhthlana Ralte
SCIC, Mizoram
Hon’ble Vice President
Chief Information Commissioner
Dear Colleagues and friends
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am thankful for the opportunity to make a presentation on the Right to Information Act 2005 today. I have chosen to speak briefly on the Suo Motu aspects of the Act. As I was also involved during the discussion stage of the Act in 2004 I feel some sense of ownership over the Act. Once a decision had been made on the purpose of the Act, the only question left was to what extent public records should be available for public scrutiny. You all know the history of the debate about whether or not the Noting portion of a file should also be included under the Act. The fact that the first amendment to the Act decided to include it in the Act clearly shows that in the minds of those who framed it, there is nothing to hide from the public. Even the exemptions listed in the Act are kept away from the public not because the public are not worthy of getting the information but because making such information available to the wider public could have adverse effects on the nation and could endanger the very public to whom the information is made available. Therefore, I look at the exemptions not as restrictions but as being required for the safety and security of the public themselves. To me, even the exemptions are information that individual citizens have a right to but, for their own good, hidden from them for the time being for greater public good.
2. Thus, there is no aspect of public service that is to be hidden from the public that a public office serves. Since we all agree that government and public service in a democracy should be transparent and accessible to the people “by” whom the government is made, to the people “for” whom the government acts and to the people “of” whom the government is made up of. This, it was hoped, would make the public a participating public in the daily governance of the country. The larger the participating public, the more number of people aware of how much, for what and, how moneys are spent in projects where funds are involved and in cases of decision making, the more transparent the process, the less likelihood of decisions that would benefit a few vested interests over the larger public good.
3. To my understanding, much of our public is unaware of the fact of the RTI Act and especially more of its very purpose. In many instances, the Act seems to be relevant only so far as people’s personal issues are concerned. Unfortunately in Mizoram also, the way RTI was used initially seems to have had a negative effect. Activists and others used it mainly to get information on projects and programmes where they felt some underhand dealings and vested interests were involved. This gave the RTI Act an aura of being only for digging out dirt and highlighting corrupt practices. So much so that anything to do with RTI was seen to be or to have a negative connotation. We are working hard to educate the public on the positive aspects of the Act.
4 If my understanding is correct, much of the pending cases under various State Information Commissions are requests related to personal issues on matters of transfers, promotions and matters related to compensation. While these may be genuine cases, it seems that very innocuous issues are bogging the system down. It is for this reason that, if all public authority were to be fully compliant with Section 4 of the RTI Act on Suo-motu disclosures, I am certain that the number of minor queries would be greatly reduced. In fact, if all parts of Section 4 were strictly followed, there would rarely be scope for queries on matters of transfers and promotions as such policies and methods would be publicly available.
5 The requirements of Section 4 clearly indicate the aims of the RTI Act and this brings us to the positive aspects of the Act. It requires Public Authorities to maintain proper records in such a manner that they become public distribution friendly. This is a tall task in a country that has a poor record on record keeping. This requirement, however, is itself a strong antidote to some of the habits that have been acquired in the governance of the country. One such is the habit of many bosses choosing to use the verbal form of giving orders so that their instructions do not go on record. We all know the reasons for such a choice. Having to maintain records of not only orders, but of also the decision making process and on top of that, making them public will, it is hoped, curb the appetite for verbal orders that have not been debated and discussed in a proper forum.
6 Full compliance with Section 4 will clearly result in actual public oriented RTI questions being redundant. It will also make those working in public authority more proud of what they are doing and will act as deterrent to un-officer like conduct and remove oral directions without basis. The only question is the matter of compliance.
7 Even though many of us would see Section 4 as being fairly innocuous and straight forward, as requiring each public authority to merely list down what and how they do for public consumption, it is a fact that many in government find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what they are responsible for and what their actual mandate is. Even attempting to comply may be difficult and it could be a big learning curve that they need to cross. We are still not very distant from the time when government was one big void that no one, even government workers were not sure of. Therefore, where the RTI Act, and especially Section 4, wishes to take us is a realm that is difficult to grasp for many people. It wishes to change the way government works, from a cloud of secrecy to a level of transparency that even the common man is not sure he can comprehend fully.
8 Section 4 (c)[i] is even more difficult. This is because we do not have a great system of public consultancy apart from the election process. “Publishing all relevant facts” even as the decision making process is on-going is something that is quite revolutionary. The Act does not make any differentiation between scales of decision either. Therefore, who is to make the decision on what “important policies” are? The public will say that all decisions affect them so they are all important. In such a scenario, strict compliance in every detail may become a burden for the public authorities.
9 In a small state like Mizoram, when the State Information Commission did a pilot audit on compliance with Section 4, it was discovered that many public authorities had not even put in place basic requirements such as public display of officers dealing with RTI issues. Apart from a few exceptional cases where the websites have clearly taken Section 4 requirements into consideration, most of the websites are just bland statements of the departmental authority without giving much of the information that is mandated.
10 An attempt was made to send out individual mailers to all Public Authorities requesting for a copy of their Public Disclosure document (s). 71 replies were received with hard copies of the authority’s public disclosure documents. Even among these, many were lacking in comparison to the requirements of Section 4. Personal visits to 26 offices were made and it became awfully clear that Section 4 compliance was highly insufficient. One of the reasons cited was the short duration of designated officers as SPIO / SAPIO. A total of 209 websites using “Mizoram.gov.in” address were visited by the Commission and here too, most sites only had a List of Staff and organizational structure. There were one or two sites that were exceptional and showed clearly that Section 4 had been kept in mind while the site was being developed. One such site was that of the <landrevenue.mizoram.gov.in>. However, even here, there were still some deficiencies which we hope will be taken care of as they develop the site further. We plan to continue our work with the state authorities on developing the Suo Motu disclosure of public authorities in Mizoram so that they become fully compliant. We strongly believe that this will help meet the aims of making the public more attentive and knowledgeable about the role and work of government. Our belief is that once a government officer knows that a few members of the public are aware of his/her responsibilities and what they can expect of him/her, the officer will be more attentive to his/her job and will also be wary of attempting to veer away from their real responsibilities.
11. Fulfillment of Section 4 is the ultimate nirvana that is to be reached by government / public authorities in record keeping and information service to the public. I also believe it is the ultimate goal of the RTI Act. From our little experience in Mizoram, it is seen that full compliance is found to be very difficult by many public authorities. Especially on the hard copy issue, it is well-nigh beyond the capability of many smaller offices to keep up with the requirements. I would suggest that perhaps the NFICI could help prepare a template for the soft version of the required Suo Motu information. Each SCIC could then help translate these into local vernaculars and make them available to the public offices. This would bring in uniformity as well as help the offices in their attempts to comply with the requirements of the RTI Act.
12. Instead of leaving it to the state government alone to comply, I would advocate that the State Information Commissions should make it their mission to ensure compliance. Perhaps we may need to seek rule changes or additions in order to give bite to the SICs so that they can give out penalties for non-compliance and bring about more seriousness in the process. Greater compliance with the Suo Motu disclosures, I believe, in the final analysis, will also help by drastically bringing down the current rate of pending RTI cases.
Thank you.
12th Annual RTI Convention: 6Dec2017
_SCIC Mizoram; Page 7
[i] publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing the decisions which affect public;
4. (1) Every public authority shall—
a) maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated;
b) publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act,—
(i) the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties;
(ii) the powers and duties of its officers and employees;
(iii) the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability;
(iv) the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions;
(v) the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions;
(vi) a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control;
(vii) the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or representation by, the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation thereof;
(viii) a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public;
(ix) a directory of its officers and employees;
(x) the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, including the system of compensation as provided in its regulations;
(xi) the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made;
(xii) the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries of such programmes;
(xiii) particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations granted by it;
(xiv) details in respect of the information, available to or held by it, reduced in an electronic form;
(xv) the particulars of facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, if maintained for public use;
(xvi) the names, designations and other particulars of the Public Information Officers;
(xvii) such other information as may be prescribed; and thereafter update these publications every year;
c) publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing the decisions which affect public;
d) provide reasons for its administrative or quasi-judicial decisions to affected persons.