Dr Joshi’s Magic Lollipops & RTI Reforms

Dr Suresh Joshi, Maharashtra's Chief SIC, is a sweet man, a gem of a person. But do you know that he is a magician? All those who go to him with suggestions, complaints and appeals leave his office after a pleasant, lengthy and ultimately pointless "discussion" for which he may not even put on his hearing aids.

We call this crowd-pleasing magic trick the "lollipop". Even prominent RTI activists like Shailesh Gandhi and Anna Hazare have had Dr J's lollipop.

Suffocating the RTI Act with sweetness is a magic trick for which Dr J has earned the admiration of CSICs in other states, and the love of all bureaucrats in Maharashtra. He performs this ritual with the tenderness of a village priest lovingly drowning a female infant in milk.

Daily, a few appellants are pleasantly surprised by the lengthy "hearing" that he gives them. This is the sweet part of the lollipop. But they get the stick when they receive strange orders that barely fall under RTI, and fail to get them any information.

Information Commissioners from Pune, Aurangabad etc. get lollipops many times a year when they plead for adequate money, staff and infrastructure. Their pleas fall on deaf ears, and as a result, RTI slowly suffocates.

Like any magic trick, the lollipop is a perfected routine. First, Dr J makes you feel important. Then he makes you agree that he is the best Chief Information Commissioner in the world – literally! Then, after all sorts of digressions, he concludes with a promise of performance and satisfaction in the future. All this is done with two, one or no hearing aids.

Points that activists want to present are sidetracked when Dr J starts talking on his pet topic: pendency. In "hearings" with activist appellants, he brings up another favorite: his duty to solve people's grievances, and not just give information. Like every good magician, Dr J performs with great sincerity and conviction.

If you rudely refuse to be sidetracked and distracted, he surprises you by promising to do something that you say. That is a special flavor of lollipop reserved for the discerning few.

One activist friend swears that if you look carefully behind his chair, Dr J's motto becomes momentarily visible. No, not *"Satyam Eva Jayate", *but* *the words, "Nothing substantial shall ever happen here", carved in stone. But this motto is magical: now you see it, now you don't!

Dr J is a talented man. No wonder Vilasrao Deshmukh's government hand-picked Dr J for the crucial job of protecting the State's bureaucrats and their dealings from nosey citizens!

Enough jokes. Now let us get serious:

We met Dr J on 4th February and put our demands on his table in large print. We fenced him in when he tried to digress. We insisted that he read in our presence what we had written. The documents given to him clearly stated the immediate remedies for RTI's ailments that we are demanding, and cautions Dr J against soft-pedalling.

Dr J beat around the bush for half an hour, initially without earphones. Then he decided that we must at least be heard, and so he put them on. We cautioned him that unless we got some commitments, we would commence agitation. To which he retorted, "Then go agitate!" And then abruptly, he started reading our points in silence, one after another. After 15 minutes, he looked up and said that 80% of our recommendations were implementable. He promised to study them, consult with others and revert to us on Monday, 9th February.

We waited eagerly. On Monday, we followed up from morning to evening with many phone calls, SMS and emails. Late in the evening, Dr J sent an SMS that said, "Please recall our discussions on Feb 4th. I have gone through the material given to me at that time. It is imminently useful. Some issues like language will have to be examined. In 4-5 days, I will be writing to the Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra, and all Secretaries outlining dos and don'ts..."

The question in our mind was: Was this a new flavor of lollipop? Or was this genuine?

We responded by email: "We need to understand the specifics of what you intend. We need to read and understand the draft of your communication to Chief Secretary and others BEFORE it is dispatched to them. Sir, please grant us an appointment to meet you at the earliest -- if possible on Tuesday, 10th February ie. tomorrow. Is 4 pm a suitable time for you?"

No response. Dr J became aloof, uncontactable.

So we went to SIC on Thursday, 12th Feb, observed a couple of Dr J's hearings and had a five-minute face-off where he bristled with indignation and said as Chief SIC, he would do whatever he thought fit, and that we could not hound him like this.

But hound him we did – with emails and SMS.

On Tuesday, 17th February, we received Dr J's SMS: "Dear Krishnaraj, My six rounds of discussions spread over ten days with all the secretaries are complete today. Points in your notes were also stressed. I will also write to the Chief Secretary in coming 2-3 days as promised. Regards, Suresh Joshi".

Very nice indeed!

Today (20th Feb), four of us paid him an impromptu visit. We had a reasonably amiable discussion, but we left with the overall feeling that we had moved no further from our first discussion on 4th Feb. We left with only assurances and sweet words, but not a shred of evidence that any action had been taken, or was really about to be taken.

*How does one view this? How does one respond?*

A person's response depends on who he is. Normal, courteous citizens yield to the greater wisdom of an experienced bureaucrat hand-picked by the government to sit in this exalted office. If so, then we must sit back and wait until the esteemed Dr J takes suitable steps for the betterment of RTI implementation.

However, my activist colleagues and I are not normal, and not always courteous. We feel that it is more important to be effective than to be nice.* *

Also, we don't like lollipops.

In the past few weeks, we have been putting together some magic routines of our own. We can pull out a few rabbits from our hat:

i) Press for proper RTI implementation in Maharashtra

ii) Build pressure of opinion for this magician's dismissal under Section 17(3)(d), which says, "Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), the Governor may by order remove from office the State Chief Information Commissioner or any State Information Commissioner if the Chief State Information Commissioner or State Information Commissioner, as the case may be, is, in the opinion of the Governor, unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind or body". *Please note: Infirmity of body.*

iii) Create public opinion against Congress Party and NCP, who put a magician into CSIC's chair to shield slippery bureaucrats and shady business dealings

Drum-rolls! Music! Let the curtains rise! Let our magic begin!

Warm Regards,
Krish
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