RTI Awards 2009
RTI Awards Jury Meet 2009
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It gives us great pleasure to announce the winners of the first ever RTI Awards. The Citizen Category award goes to Akhil Gogoi of Assam. The remaining eighteen finalists were chosen by the jury to collectively receive the award for the runner-up. The award in the PIO category goes to Dr. Lalit Narayan Mishra. The remaining two finalists Mr. Raja Sekhar and Mr. Atul Fulzale will share the award for the runner up. The Information Commission award goes to Arunachal Pradesh Information Commission as whole instead of one particular Commissioner. The decision was made to honor the Arunachal Pradesh Commission collectively.
Winner: Akhil Gogoi
Award: Rs. 2 Lakhs, Trophy and Citation
Akhil Gogoi was chosen for his outstanding contribution to the RTI movement. In particular his work in using RTI to expose corruption in government schemes in a hostile environment, despite great personal risk was considered as key factors in his winning the award.
The contribution of the remaining eighteen finalists is also being recognized. All the eighteen have been selected as runner-ups and will be given awards of Rs. 1 lakh each.
Runner-up: All remaining 18 finalists
Award: Rs. 1 Lakh each, Citation
Winner: Dr. Lalit Narayan Mishra
Award: Rs. 2 lakhs, Trophy and Citation
Runner-up: 
Raja Sekhar
Atul Fulzale
Award: Rs. 1 Lakh, Citation
Information Commissioner Category:
Winner: Arunachal Pradesh Information CommissionAward: Rs. 2 lakhs, Trophy and Citation
Arunachal Pradesh received a very high Overall Public Satisfaction (OPS) of 85%. This means that if 100 people approached Arunachal Pradesh Information Commission, 85 of them finally got the information they were seeking. This is almost three times the national average of 26%. The state is very high on getting its orders implemented. In 91% of the orders passed by Arunachal Pradesh commission, people got the information. The Commission does not close a case till the appellant registers his/her satisfaction. So, they follow the practice of “continuing mandamus”
The Commissions is very strong on enforcement. In 45 cases that it disposed, penalties were imposed on 25 officers in 2006-07. In the calendar year 2008, they imposed penalties in 18% cases.
Most of the people that we spoke to were full of praise for their commission. The PIOs are scared of violating RTI provisions.
In the year 2009, the commission became the only commission to issue bail-able arrest warrants against an officer who did not comply with commission’s orders. During 2008, the commission issued 43 orders, out of which 40 orders were passed in favor of disclosures. On an average, it takes four months time between filing an appeal and getting information after all the hearings in this state. The commission with just 43 cases, has four commissioners. Certainly, the commission does not need so many commissioners. However, the commissioners are appointed by the state government and the commission has little role in it. The commissioners rarely pass orders as a single bench. Most of the orders are passed by them collectively as one bench. Therefore, they are being honoured collectively as a commission.
It may be argued that since they have such small number of cases, it is possible for them to monitor cases and ensure satisfaction. However, the data does not support this. There are more than 25 commissioners in the country who disposed less than one order per day. However, their compliance and satisfaction ratios are pretty low. The commission had zero pendency at the end of the year.
Interestingly, it is good practices adopted by some of them, which provide the solution. The states of Bihar, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh and Punjab follow the practice of “continuing mandamus” i.e. they do not close a case till such time as the appellant reports compliance. And that could be one of the reasons why they are higher than others in terms of compliance. However, they are low on enforcement. Repeated hearings (in some cases more than 15 hearings), sometimes spanning into a few years, tires out a citizen.
Therefore, it is time for Information Commissioners to implement the law as mandated following the principle of maximum disclosures. They have the power to create an atmosphere of strong deterrence – that RTI violations would not be tolerated. On one hand there is a need to strictly deal with every RTI violation, on the other hand, following the example of Arunachal Pradesh, the commissioners are empowered, barring exceptional cases, to invoke their powers of arrest and production of documents if the officer does not provide satisfactory information.
Information, in many cases, loses its relevance, if provided two years after filing RTI. Strong enforcement would also reduce pendencies as that would reduce the inflow of complaints and appeals at Information Commissions.
Out of roughly 52,000 orders, in negligible number of cases had the Commissioners found that RTI was misused or that it was a case of frivolous RTI. If at all such cases came, they were adequately handled by Information Commissions. We, therefore, do not feel a need to amend RTI Act to give power of refusal of frivolous RTIs to PIOs.
We congratulate the winners and hope this award would motivate them to carry on with their good work and inspire others.