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How scared are the government officers of the RTI Act?

News Desk - October 23, 2009

PATNA — If you filed an appeal with an RTI Information Commission, there is a 27% chance that you will get the information. And if you got a favorable order from the Commission, there is still only a 39% chance that you would get the information.

These are some of the many interesting findings of the largest ever study conducted to assess the performance of RTI Information Commissions across the country.

Although Bihar has earned laurels at the national level for taking the initiative to provide information under the RTI Act besides establishing Jankari call centre, the state is placed tenth in the country with regard to RTI parameters.

There are 28 informtion commmissions in the states and one at the Centre with altogether 94 information commissioners.

Bihar is behind Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Orissa, Assam and four other states but ahead of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states.

This has been revealed in a survey conducted by the National RTI Awards Secretariat to assess the performance of information commissions across the country for National RTI Awards 2009. It is based on the feedback from 6,000 people.

As far as overall public satisfaction with the commssions is concerned, Bihar has been given 31% compared to 55% to Karnataka and 52% to Kerala. The finding said the national average of getting information under RTI is 27%.

The Secretariat also analyzed 51,128 orders passed by the information commissioners. Of the cases in which orders were passed, only two per cent of the officials were penalized.

“If an officer does not provide information under the RTI Act, despite an order from the information commission, there is two per cent chance that he would be penalized,” the finding said.

There are 23 commissioners who have virtually never imposed any penalty for non-disclosure.

Bihar’s two information commissioners Shakeel Ahmad and P N Narayanan have been placed at 30th and 33rd position respectively on effectiveness parameter and the same ranking in imposing penalties.

Key Criteria and Ranking

Four key metrics have been identified and all the data has been presented on the basis of these parameters. These metrics are: Overall Public satisfaction (OPS), Effectiveness, Deterrent Impact, and Pro-disclosure factor

Pro-Disclosure Factors

The last metric that was used to rank the Commissions and the Commissioners was the pro-disclosure factor. It’s a measure of who passed the maximum number of orders in favor of disclosures.

It was found that 98% of the orders in Assam were pro-disclosures. Andhra Pradesh rejected a large number of cases on technical grounds and is at the bottom with 33%. Uttarakhand remanded large number of cases and rejected large number of complaints and was at 35%.

Bihar with 76.1% pro-disclosures stood at 17th rank.

Anil Joshi of Chhattisgarh passed 100% orders in favor of disclosures. Naveen Kumar of Maharashtra who remanded back almost 50% of his orders and rejected 36% cases is at the bottom with just 14% orders in favor of disclosures.

While Dr Shakil Ahmed of Bihar passed 87.1% orders in favor of disclosures his colleague P N Narayanan scored only 63.6% in this respect.

Rank Commission Pro-Disclosure Factor
1 Assam 98.0
2 Chattisgarh 95.3
3 Arunachal Pradesh 93.0
4 Punjab 92.6
5 Karnataka 91.1
6 Manipur 89.0
7 Madhya Pradesh 88.6
7 Himachal Pradesh 88.6
9 Haryana 87.5
10 Kerela 86.0
11 Orissa 85.1
12 Jharkhand 82.6
13 Rajasthan 82.3
14 Tripura 80.7
15 Mizoram 80.0
16 West Bengal 76.5
17 Bihar 76.1
18 Nagaland 75.0
19 Gujarat 71.6
20 Central Information Commission 64.8
21 Goa 62.2
22 Meghalaya 48.1
23 Maharashtra 43.6
24 Uttarakhand 34.7
25 Andhra Pradesh 32.2
Rank Name of the Commissioner Pro-Disclosure Factor
1 Anil Joshi 100.0
1 Bench of Anil Joshi & Vijayavargia 100.0
3 Combined Benches of Assam 98.8
4 B K Gohain 98.0
5 Ashok Mehta 97.6
6 Shrishtidhar Mahato 97.1
7 Ravi Singh 97.0
8 P P S Gill 96.4
9 K A Thippeswamy 96.0
10 K K Misra 95.7
11 Surinder Singh 95.3
12 R K Gupta 95.1
13 P N Vijayakumar 95.0
14 A K Vijayavargia 94.8
15 Dr Suresh V Joshi 94.7
16 P K Grover Lt. Gen. (Retd.) 94.6
17 P P Tiwari 94.5
18 Prof Praful Kumar Mahato 94.2
18 Mrs Asha Sharma 94.2
20 Rupan Deol Bajaj 94.0
21 Mahesh Pandey 93.4
22 Combined Benches of Arunachal Pradesh 93.0
23 G Madhavan 92.3
23 Harishankar Prasad 92.3
25 Combined benches of Karnataka 92.0
26 Ramanand Tiwari 91.3
27 Harishchandra Pattar Munda 90.7
28 Dr K Rajagopal 90.4
29 M R Ranga 90.0
30 Combined benches of Jharkhand 89.9
30 Kulbir Singh 89.9
32 Palat Mohandas 89.7
33 P Faziluddin 89.2
34 R K Angousana Singh 89.0
34 Prem Veer Singh 89.0
36 Combined benches of MP 88.9
37 S S Parmar 88.7
38 Himachal Pradesh 88.6
39 P S Rana 88.5
40 Combined benches of Orissa 88.4
41 Combined Benches in Punjab 88.1
42 P K Verma 87.7
43 V V Giry 87.6
44 Dr Shakil Ahmed 87.1
45 D C Jugran 86.9
46 Justice Shashank Kumar Singh 86.3
47 Vijay Kuvlekar 85.6
48 D N Padhi 85.3
49 O P Kejariwal 85.0
50 M D Kaurani 82.3
51 Jagadananda 82.2
52 Radhamohan 82.1
53 M L Sharma 81.1
54 Combined Benches of Tripura 80.7
55 Combined Bench in Mizoram 80.0
56 Mrs Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry 79.9
57 H N Krishna 79.7
57 Shailesh Gandhi 79.7
59 G G Kambli 79.6
60 Lt Gen (Retd) J B S Yadava 79.3
61 Iqbal Ahmed 78.1
62 Baijnath Mishra 76.9
63 Arun Kumar Bhattacharya 76.5
64 Combined benches of Kerela 75.7
65 Combined Bench in Nagaland 75.0
66 M M Ansari 71.7
67 R N Das 71.6
68 Ram Bilas Gupta 68.6
69 R. Dileep Reddy 67.6
70 Wajahat Habibullah 66.7
71 K Sudhakara Rao 66.0
72 Annapurna Dixit 65.6
73 P N Narayanan 63.6
73 Combined benches of CIC 63.6
75 Combined Benches of Goa 58.2
76 A Venkataratnam 57.5
77 Satyananda Mishra 48.3
78 A Subba Rao 48.1
78 G P Wahlang 48.1
80 Padma Balasubramaniam 46.5
81 Vilas Patil 46.2
82 A N Tiwari 41.1
83 R S Tolia 34.7
84 Vijay Baburao Borge 21.5
85 C D Arha 18.1
86 Naveen Kumar 13.7

Deterrent Impact

How scared are the government officers of the RTI Act? Given the high levels of corruption and a culture of secrecy, what is the penalty levied on a government officer, who has all the incentive to hide information, if he does not disclose information? Under the RTI Act, a direct penalty can be imposed and deducted from the salaries of the officials who violate the Act. But has this provision served as a deterrent?

Out of those cases in which pro-disclosure orders were passed, which means that a violation of RTI Act was established, only 2% were penalized! So, if an officer does not provide information under the RTI Act, despite an order from the Information Commission, there is a two percent chance that he would be penalized! Is this a sufficient deterrent?

The RTI Act clearly says that a penalty “shall” be imposed. However, in practice it appears that the will of the Parliament has been mostly ignored!

Rank Commission Deterrent Impact
1 Mizoram 25.0
2 Nagaland 22.2
3 Arunachal Pradesh 17.5
4 Orissa 11.7
5 Goa 8.9
6 Uttarakhand 8.5
7 Meghalaya 8.0
8 Chattisgarh 4.5
9 Maharashtra 4.2
10 West Bengal 3.8
11 Haryana 3.7
12 Bihar 2.2
13 Gujarat 2.1
14 Rajasthan 2.0
15 Central Information Commission 1.8
16 Punjab 1.4
16 Kerela 1.4
18 Karnataka 1.1
19 Himachal Pradesh 0.4
20 Madhya Pradesh 0.2
20 Andhra Pradesh 0.2
22 Jharkhand 0.1
23 Assam 0.0
23 Manipur 0.0
23 Tripura 0.0
Rank Name of the Commissioner Deterrant Impact
1 Combined benches of Orissa 30.3
2 Combined Bench in Mizoram 25.0
3 Combined Bench in Nagaland 22.2
4 Combined Benches of Arunachal Pradesh 17.5
5 D N Padhi 11.1
6 Combined Benches of Goa 10.4
7 Vijay Baburao Borge 10.3
8 M R Ranga 10.2
9 Vilas Patil 9.7
10 A Venkataratnam 8.7
11 R S Tolia 8.5
12 G P Wahlang 8.0
13 Bench of Anil Joshi & Vijayavargia 7.4
14 Lt Gen (Retd) J B S Yadava 6.8
15 A N Tiwari 6.1
16 G G Kambli 5.1
17 Wajahat Habibullah 4.9
18 A K Vijayavargia 4.2
19 Mrs Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry 4.1
20 Arun Kumar Bhattacharya 3.8
21 Anil Joshi 3.4
22 Ravi Singh 3.1
23 Vijay Kuvlekar 2.9
24 Palat Mohandas 2.8
25 Kulbir Singh 2.7
26 R K Gupta 2.6
26 G Madhavan 2.6
28 Ashok Mehta 2.5
29 O P Kejariwal 2.4
30 P Faziluddin 2.3
30 Dr Shakil Ahmed 2.3
30 Rupan Deol Bajaj 2.3
33 Justice Shashank Kumar Singh 2.2
34 R N Das 2.1
34 P N Narayanan 2.1
36 M D Kaurani 2.0
37 P P S Gill 1.7
37 Prem Veer Singh 1.7
39 S S Parmar 1.6
39 Dr Suresh V Joshi 1.6
41 H N Krishna 1.5
42 Padma Balasubramaniam 1.3
42 P K Grover Lt. Gen. (Retd.) 1.3
42 Combined Benches of Assam 1.3
45 K K Misra 1.2
46 Jagadananda 1.1
47 V V Giry 0.9
48 K A Thippeswamy 0.8
48 Shailesh Gandhi 0.8
50 Combined benches of Kerela 0.6
51 Mahesh Pandey 0.5
51 Combined benches of Jharkhand 0.5
51 Naveen Kumar 0.5
51 A Subba Rao 0.5
55 P P Tiwari 0.4
55 Surinder Singh 0.4
57 M M Ansari 0.2
58 Ramanand Tiwari 0.2
58  R. Dileep Reddy 0.0
58 C D Arha 0.0
58 K Sudhakara Rao 0.0
58 B K Gohain 0.0
58 Annapurna Dixit 0.0
58 Combined benches of CIC 0.0
58 M L Sharma 0.0
58 Satyananda Mishra 0.0
58 Mrs Asha Sharma 0.0
58 P S Rana 0.0
58 Himachal Pradesh 0.0
58 Baijnath Mishra 0.0
58 Harishankar Prasad 0.0
58 Harishchandra Pattar Munda 0.0
58 Prof Praful Kumar Mahato 0.0
58 Ram Bilas Gupta 0.0
58 Shrishtidhar Mahato 0.0
58 Combined benches of Karnataka 0.0
58 Dr K Rajagopal 0.0
58 P N Vijayakumar 0.0
58 Combined benches of MP 0.0
58 D C Jugran 0.0
58 Iqbal Ahmed 0.0
58 R K Angousana Singh 0.0
58 Radhamohan 0.0
58 Combined Benches in Punjab 0.0
58 P K Verma 0.0
58 Combined Benches of Tripura 0.0

Effectiveness

How effective are the Commissions in getting their own orders implemented? It was found that 39% of the pro-disclosure orders were complied with on a national level. This means that despite a favorable order, 61% people still do not get satisfactory information. Unfortunately, these people made several rounds of the Commissions, wrote many letters and made repeated phone calls but do not receive information as the case was closed after the order is passed.

RTI Act gives powers of summons, penalties, arrests, production of documents etc. Barring penalties, these powers were never invoked by any commissioner.

However, some Commissions like those in Punjab and Karnataka follow an interesting practice. They do not close a case and keep having repeated hearings till the appellant reports satisfaction, which perhaps is one of the reasons for their high rankings on this parameter.

It was found that Karnataka & Kerala are at the top on this parameter with 60% effectiveness. Bihar ranked 6th with 40.3 effectiveness.

Again, P Faziluddin of Kerala leads with an effectiveness of 75%. The Chief Information Commissioner of CIC Wajahat Habibullah is fourth at 63%. Bihar’s two information commissioners Shakeel Ahmad and P N Narayanan have been placed at 30th and 33rd position respectively. At the bottom of the list is Arun Kumar Bhattacharya of West Bengal at 8%.

Rank Commission Effectiveness
1 Karnataka 59.9
1 Kerela 59.9
3 Punjab 50.2
4 Gujarat 45.0
5 Orissa 43.4
6 Bihar 40.3
7 Madhya Pradesh 39.9
7 Uttarakhand 38.9
9 Jharkhand 38.2
10 Assam 37.5
11 Chattisgarh 34.6
12 Haryana 32.2
13 Maharashtra 31.8
14 Andhra Pradesh 31.1
15 Central Information Commission 29.3
16 Rajasthan 25.1
17 West Bengal 8.0
Rank Name of the Commissioner Effectiveness
1 P Faziluddin 75.0
2 Palat Mohandas 67.7
3 K K Misra 64.0
4 Wajahat Habibullah 62.5
5 P K Grover Lt. Gen. (Retd.) 59.4
6 K A Thippeswamy 58.7
7 P P S Gill 58.5
8 Harishchandra Pattar Munda 58.3
9 V V Giry 57.9
10 H N Krishna 57.5
11 R K Gupta 57.1
12 Combined Benches of Assam 54.5
13 D N Padhi 53.1
14 Combined benches of Kerela 51.5
15 Mahesh Pandey 51.0
16 K Sudhakara Rao 50.0
17 Ram Bilas Gupta 47.6
18 Surinder Singh 47.4
19 Kulbir Singh 46.9
19 Ravi Singh 46.9
21 Justice Shashank Kumar Singh 46.2
22 R N Das 45.0
23 P K Verma 44.2
24 P N Vijayakumar 43.8
25 D C Jugran 43.7
26 Ashok Mehta 42.2
27 Vijay Kuvlekar 41.1
28 Bench of Anil Joshi & Vijayavargia 40.9
29 A N Tiwari 40.0
30 Dr Shakil Ahmed 39.4
31 R S Tolia 38.9
32 Rupan Deol Bajaj 38.1
33 P N Narayanan 37.8
34 B K Gohain 37.5
35 Vijay Baburao Borge 36.3
36 Prof Praful Kumar Mahato 35.7
37 P P Tiwari 35.4
38 Combined benches of Jharkhand 34.9
39 Mrs Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry 34.2
40 A K Vijayavargia 34.0
41 Lt Gen (Retd) J B S Yadava 33.3
41 Iqbal Ahmed 33.3
43 Naveen Kumar 32.1
44 Vilas Patil 31.6
45 G Madhavan 31.0
46 Prem Veer Singh 30.3
47 Annapurna Dixit 29.6
48 Padma Balasubramaniam 28.2
49 Mrs Asha Sharma 27.8
50 O P Kejariwal 26.6
51 Baijnath Mishra 26.3
52 M D Kaurani 25.1
53 Satyananda Mishra 25.0
54 Combined benches of MP 25.0
54 Jagadananda 25.0
56 Ramanand Tiwari 24.3
57 Dr Suresh V Joshi 23.5
58 M M Ansari 21.5
59 C D Arha 21.4
60 Shailesh Gandhi 21.2
61 M R Ranga 15.8
62 M L Sharma 11.1
63 Arun Kumar Bhattacharya 8.3

Overall Public Satisfaction (OPS)

The National RTI Awards Secretariat wrote letters to these 34,980 people asking them whether they finally received satisfactory information after Commission’s orders. To this, nearly 6,000 people responded out of which only 39% reported having received information, despite the Information Commission’s order in their favor.

This means that if 100 people approached Information Commissions, only 27 finally received information. For the purpose of the analysis this metric has been termed as Overall Public Satisfaction (OPS).

Karnataka tops the list with 55% OPS and West Bengal is at the bottom with 6% OPS. This means that if 100 people approach West Bengal Information Commission, only 6 finally get information.

Bihar has 30.7% OPS and ranks 10th.

Amongst Commissioners, P Faziluddin from Kerela is at the top with an OPS of 67%. C D Arha of Andhra Pradesh and Naveen Kumar of Maharashtra are at the bottom with 4% OPS.

Rank Commission OPS
1 Karnataka 54.6
2 Kerela 51.5
3 Punjab 46.5
4 Orissa 36.9
5 Assam 36.7
6 Madhya Pradesh 35.3
7 Chattisgarh 33.0
8 Gujarat 32.2
9 Jharkhand 31.5
10 Bihar 30.7
11 Haryana 28.2
12 Rajasthan 20.6
13 Central Information Commission 19.0
14 Maharashtra 13.9
15 Uttarakhand 13.5
16 Andhra Pradesh 10.0
17 West Bengal 8.0
Rank Name of the Commissioner OPS
1 P Faziluddin 66.9
2 K K Misra 61.3
3 Palat Mohandas 60.8
4 P P S Gill 56.4
4 K A Thippeswamy 56.4
6 P K Grover Lt. Gen. (Retd.) 56.2
7 R K Gupta 54.3
8 Combined Benches of Assam 53.9
9 Harishchandra Pattar Munda 52.9
10 V V Giry 50.7
11 Mahesh Pandey 47.6
12 H N Krishna 45.8
13 Ravi Singh 45.5
14 D N Padhi 45.3
15 Surinder Singh 45.2
16 Kulbir Singh 42.1
17 Wajahat Habibullah 41.7
18 P N Vijayakumar 41.6
19 Ashok Mehta 41.2
20 Bench of Anil Joshi & Vijayavargia 40.9
21 Justice Shashank Kumar Singh 39.8
22 Combined benches of Kerela 39.0
23 P K Verma 38.8
24 D C Jugran 38.0
25 B K Gohain 36.7
26 Rupan Deol Bajaj 35.8
27 Vijay Kuvlekar 35.2
28 Dr Shakil Ahmed 34.3
29 Prof Praful Kumar Mahato 33.7
30 P P Tiwari 33.5
31 K Sudhakara Rao 33.0
32 Ram Bilas Gupta 32.7
33 R N Das 32.2
33 A K Vijayavargia 32.2
35 Combined benches of Jharkhand 31.4
36 G Madhavan 28.6
37 Mrs Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry 27.4
38 Prem Veer Singh 27.0
39 Lt Gen (Retd) J B S Yadava 26.4
40 Mrs Asha Sharma 26.2
41 Iqbal Ahmed 26.0
42 P N Narayanan 24.1
43 O P Kejariwal 22.6
44 Dr Suresh V Joshi 22.2
44 Combined benches of MP 22.2
44 Ramanand Tiwari 22.2
47 M D Kaurani 20.6
47 Jagadananda 20.6
49 Baijnath Mishra 20.2
50 Annapurna Dixit 19.4
51 Shailesh Gandhi 16.9
52 A N Tiwari 16.4
53 M M Ansari 15.4
54 Vilas Patil 14.6
55 M R Ranga 14.2
56 R S Tolia 13.5
57 Padma Balasubramaniam 13.1
58 Satyananda Mishra 12.1
59 M L Sharma 9.0
60 Vijay Baburao Borge 7.8
61 Arun Kumar Bhattacharya 6.4
62 Naveen Kumar 4.4
63 C D Arha 3.9

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3 Responses to “How scared are the government officers of the RTI Act?”

Government officers must not be scared with RTI Act, instead they should be happy if they are honest , as they have learnt in school days ‘Honesty is the best policy’. They will learn the meaning of ‘professionalism’. By this way they will get back their lost reputation. They will not be called as ‘Haramkhor’ as they will perform for their value and salary they are paid. They will understand the ‘meaning of democratic form of Government’ and to perform as per the guidlines of a democtratic system which is welfare of the public as whole.

Reply

Rajesh K.Pathak November 21st, 2009 12:52 pm

No doubt the NDA lead states have good governence as compare to UPA lead govt.UPA must learn lesson from such goverenence

Reply

kishori October 24th, 2009 9:50 am

Not bad !!

Reply

Nisha Yadav October 23rd, 2009 11:17 pm

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