National RTI Awards

2 Responses to “RTI Award winner donates prize money”

1. P M Ravindran Says:
   
   December 14th, 2009 at 7:31 am

   Congrats, Mr Gogoi. Keep it up and may God bless you.

   regards n bw

   ravi

   
   
2. Ramniwas Chauby Says:
   
   December 29th, 2009 at 3:19 am

   A Critique of PCRF’s RTI Awards

   M.M. Ansari

   In spite of our detailed comments on the PCRF Report on RTI Awards, in which we pointed serious methodological and technical deficiencies and grossly erroneous conclusions in preparation of the Report and its flawed conclusions, the PCRF’s Jury has announced the award in favour of Arunachal Pradesh Information Commission (APIC). The rationale for judging this Commission as the best, among all Commissions, requires an objective evaluation in the backdrop of the citation, which reads as under:

   “Information Commissioner Category:
   Winner: Arunachal Pradesh Information Commission
   Award: 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 favour 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”
   (http://www.rtiawards.org/)

   Now, let us consider the following:
   First, The APIC, comprising four ICs, disposed of a meagre 43 cases in a year, which comes to less than one decision per month per Commissioner.
   Against this, the corresponding figure for the CIC and some other State Commissions is hundred times more, between 100 to 200 cases per month per Commissioner. This fact has been deliberately  rather designedly  ignored by the evaluators, possibly because factoring in “sample sizes” would not have helped them support predetermined conclusions, and extol virtues of their favourites and denigrate others. The laboured effort to underplay the deficiencies of the “winner”, is far too obvious to be ignored.
   Surprisingly, the Jury has sailed along with these evaluators whose methods and approaches would fail the most elementary scrutiny.
   Second, The APIC has to its credit 85% of affirmative decisions
   (35 – 40 cases only), which form the basis for Overall Public Satisfaction (OPS).
   Against this meagre figure of 35 – 40 or so, the CIC has over 2000 decisions in this category, as per PCRF’s own estimates. Likewise, other Commissions like Maharashtra Information Commission have passed a large number of favourable decisions to ensure maximum disclosure of information. But, the Jury chose not only to ignore such an important quantitative dimension, but also relied on subjective feed back about people’s satisfaction as provided by the PCRF’s staff. More, surely, was expected of the Jury giving away what was described  tongue in cheek  as “national awards”.
   Third, The APIC imposed 25 penalties whereas CIC imposed over 100 penalties on PIOs as well as awarded compensation to a large number of appellants. The CIC and many SICs indeed scrupulously enforced the RTI Act provisions, which has resulted in ensuring entitlements of the citizens. Media reports have so much to say on this.
   The PCRF’s Jury has again, conveniently, and in keeping with their eager endorsement of all they were fed by the so-called evaluators  ignored these vital facts.
   Fourth, No attempt has been made to assess the quality of decisions passed by APIC vis-à-vis other Commissions, including CIC, in terms of the impact of the Commissions’ decisions in promoting transparency, accountability and containing corruption, which are the major objectives of the Act. Why have these aspects been ignored and not factored in the evaluation process and criteria? The evaluators who seem to have been driven by an insane urge to use statistics blindly, to prove and disprove, according to what they believed RTI Act comprised, scarcely realized that statistics can lie too. A true test of the validity of the Commissioner’s decisions would be whether these were made within the four corners of law. Many of these decisions of the Commissions, which were challenged in High Courts, were upheld testifying to their validity.
   The manner in which the evaluators have gone about their job leads to an inference that the Commissioners would do well to allow an appeal even if the law would not permit it. Are the evaluators trying to suggest that the role of the Commission was that of a bull in the China Shop? If there are strictures from superior courts, it is the Commissioner who shall be the sufferer. In any case, it is a chimera that those Commissioners who allow most appeals contribute to promotion of the RTI Act’s objectives and those who reject some or many such appeals even on valid grounds, do it a disservice.
   We are surprised that the jury  eminent persons as these are called  turned a blind-eye to this important aspect and were led up the garden path by the authors of this flawed report.
   Fifth, There are umpteen number of success stories, which indicate significant improvement in governance, owing to the various Commissions’ decisions. The question is: In how many cases APIC’s decisions have been cited as landmark orders  opening up information long held confidential  compared to CIC’s and other SIC’s decisions? The criterion of the “quality of the decisions” which contributed to evolution of the information regime has been grossly ignored and neglected, either because the authors lacked ability to accomplish the task they set-out for, their prejudices or because they were presenting misleading information for mala-fide reasons. Who will explain this?
   Sixth, Consider the cost of disposal of appeals and complaints. While the monetary compensation paid to ICs, including other supporting facilities, are comparable, there is wide difference in the work burden shared by the Commissioners. An IC of APIC, for instance, has disposed of less than one decision per month whereas an IC of the CIC and several SICs have disposed of hundred times more that many cases per month.
   Has the PCRF Jury considered this point? Is it not proper to take into consideration such aspects as cost-effectiveness of delivery of justice under the RTI Act? The Jury owes an explanation to the country for disseminating false and un-scientific analysis and views to promote vested interests of those who are associated with the PCRF.
   Seventh, The PCRF Jury has patted the APIC for disposing of all the 43 cases in a year through full bench hearings, with zero pendency in the Commission. Now consider the work load of other Commissions like CIC & Maharashtra Commission, which are receiving over 1500 appeals per month. If all the Commissions dispose of cases in the same manner as APIC, as apparently, recommended by the Jury, the backlog of cases would be so huge as to make a mockery of RTI. Has the Jury reflected on the sheer absurdity of their position? Or their so-called eminence is sufficient ground for their
   off-loading of this grotesque banality of a report on the nation.
   Eighth, None of the PCRF Jury members have had any opportunity to, or cared to, interact with the major stakeholders – the information-seekers, the PIOs as information provider and the ICs, whose performance they were evaluating for these so-called “national” RTI awards. The citation spoke about the satisfaction of the appellants. What was the basis of their satisfaction, or for that reason, their being dissatisfied? Was it to be concluded that if a legally defensible order denying information left an appellant dissatisfied, his dissatisfaction was sufficient reason to tar the Commissioner who made that order? Or conversely, if appellant expressed satisfaction even if denied information wrongly under the Act, will that satisfaction be a ground for extolling the Commissioner? What is this satisfaction all about? Is it just a feeling, or is it something grounded in the reality of the Commissioner’s decision? How have the evaluators evaluated satisfaction? What was their methodology? Nothing is clear. A phone-call to a person asking him, Are you satisfied? and his answering in ‘yes or no’ seems to have been the basis of this supercilious evaluation. It is a pity that this jury  claiming eminence  has conveniently chosen not to ask any such questions. Is it not an act of irresponsibility? They owe an explanation. They have hardly had any direct feel of the matter, which was the subject of their evaluation.
   The Jury Members have hardly had any chance to make an independent analysis of what was presented before them by PCRF. They have put their signatures on the dotted lines drawn for them by the organisers. Can such a flawed award procedure even remotely be described as transparent, objective or scientific in its approach and analysis? Is this the “TRANSPARENCY” their eminencies so glibly commend for everyone else and become so loudly judgemental about?
   Ninth, The PCRF has inappropriately called the awards as ‘National RTI Awards’ without any thought to the legality of an NGO describing the awards it unilaterally gives, as “National”. Should not the jury members  their grand eminencies  queried PCRF regarding their use of the word “national” for these so-called awards?
   On a general point, should not the NGO  PCRF practice what it preaches  i.e. transparency? Why can’t PCRF voluntarily accede to RTI Act and accept all obligations thereto? What does the country know about this NGO’s funding including its foreign funding? Why should its affairs remain opaque when it demands transparency from all others? The jury failed to ask this elementary question before allowing PCRF to use its (jury’s) members’ shoulders to fire its guns. The episode has all trappings of an unholy alliance.

   Prof. M.M. Ansari
   mm.ansari@nic.in