Times of India, LUCKNOW: The provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act
have to be more strictly followed in issuing summons and slapping
penalties on the erring Public Information Officers (PIOs).
This was among the many suggestions made by RTI activist Arvind
Kejriwal towards strengthening the Right to Information (RTI) Act in
the state.
Kejriwal met UP's Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Gyanendra
Sharma on Friday. State Information Commission (SIC) has evolved a set
of regulations with a purpose to expedite the functioning of the
commission and dispose cases as soon as possible. "We discussed the
regulations and he made some suggestions," said Sharma.
The new regulations specify that applicants will have to be more
restrained in voicing their complaints as the SIC will only consider
appeals written in dignified language. Besides, the complaints/appeals
will have to complete in all respects.
The name and address of the complainant/applicant, name and address of
the Public Information Officer (PIO) and the first appellate authority
against whom appeal has been filed will have to be mentioned therein
along with the reason behind the complaint/appeal.
The new set of regulations have been posted on the official website of
the UPSIC and recommendations have started pouring in. The regulations
have been devised by the commission as deciding the functioning of the
body is entirely its internal matter. "These regulations are defined
in the Act but we wish to regularise these provisions", added the CIC.
The commission will start following these new regulations shortly.
Once these regulations come into force, even the old cases marked for
further hearings will be dealt with in accordance with the new
guidelines.
The regulations have taken into consideration the common complaint
that lot of applicants could not make to the hearing as they are not
informed on time by the commission. With new regulations being
implemented, applicants will have to be informed seven days in advance
of the date of hearing. However, applicants wishing not to appear for
the hearing will have to mention it clearly in their
appeals/complaints. This will not defer the hearing and case will be
disposed off on time.
To give the commission a proper view into the matter, the
applicant/complainant will have to attach self-attested copies of the
applications submitted to the PIO along with the receipt of the fee
deposited and of the order, if any, passed by the PIO on that
application.
A similar set of documents (concerning the first appellate authority)
will have to be submitted if the appeal is against this official.
Besides, all the complaints/appeals will have to contain a proper
indexing of all the documents submitted to the commission. It is this
regulation which is seeing maximum opposition and even Kejriwal did
not favour it arguing that indexing will make the job difficult for
the common man.
The complainant/applicant will have to make it clear if he/she has not
filed any prior appeal or complaint on the matter taken up by him/her
in the commission along with documents which form the basis of his/her
appeal or complaint.
...
by Neha Shukla,TNN, 3 Aug 2008
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