Saturday, May 11, 2013

Re: [IAC#RG] ESCALATION: PUBLIC GRIEVANCE: DoPT's new Guidelines on suo-moto disclosure in RTI.

To:
Shri P.K.Misra, IAS
Secretary, Department of Personnel

BY EMAIL

Date: 11.05.2013

Sir,

I am constrained to inform you that I have not had the courtesy of a reply from you to my email below.

I am again constrained to bring to your notice my specific grievance that the DOPT, under you,  has advised all the Ministries and Departments of the Union Government to publish on their websites all RTI requests, replies and appeals pertaining to them

I am constrained to object as follows:-

1) That the said advice is CORRUPTLY delivered on the lobbying of Ms Aruna Roy, a notorious foreign financed tout embedded within an irregular government body "National Advisory Council (NAC)" through a Task Force packed with her equally foreign financed operatives.

2) The consequence of this advice is that RTI users all over India shall be threatened, attacked and killed.

3) That this obnoxious clause 1.4.1. was CORRUPTLY inserted without any proper public notice.

4) That all my own comments against the Task Force's proceedings were ignored due to the clout and influence these foreign controlled touts wield within your Department. It seems that under your watch Indians and dogs are not welcome at the DoPT.

5) That the said advice is contrary to many specific provisions RTI Act as is clear from the preamble to the Act

"Now, therefore, it is expedient to provide for furnishing certain information to citizens who desire to have it."

6) I don't think it is anybody's case that all communications between citizens and government should automatically be placed in public domain over the internet.

I would therefore be obliged if the said clause 1.4.1 is immediately withdrawn in the larger public interest and the same communicated to me by next Friday 17-05-2013 at the very latest.

With best wishes

Yours faithfully

Sarbajit Roy
National Convenor
India Against Corruption, jan andolan

B/59 Defence Colony
New Delhi 110024
Tel : 09311448069

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 8:49 AM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:
To:
Shri P.K.Misra, IAS
Secretary, Department of Personnel

BY EMAIL

Date: 28.04.2013

Sir,

I am constrained to inform you as follows:-

1) That Shri Manoj Joshi, JS(AT&A) has not yet acknowledged my email addressed to him, dated 21.04.2013.

2) That every time I complain to the DoPT using Public Grievance Facility, certain vested interests like Ms. Aruna Roy (Member/NAC) ensure that the concerned files get stolen / lost within DoPT. The junior officers of the concerned RTI section are hapless since the oral orders to arrange the theft of these files emanate directly from the National Advisory Council and they are powerless to refuse. When the officers refuse to be cowed down to make the files disappear they are bribed with out-of-turn promotions, such as in the case of Mr. K.G.Verma (formerly Director/RTI) who arranged that some crucial files disappeared and no FIR was lodged for it.

3) In the instant case, I am aggrieved that Ms. Aruna Roy-member NAC (who describes herself as being founder of an organisation styled as National Campaign for People's Right to Information - "NCPRI") managed to pack a Task Force for RTI suo-moto disclosure with constituents of the NCPRI, to the extent that all the representatives of so-called "civil society" in the Task force were her dummies who uniformly demanded to be heavily reimbursed for their participation in the Task Force, and which I suspect is a kick-back for Ms. Aruna Roy who got them appointed by misusing her position as member NAC, where incidentally she mock-piously takes no money.

4) As Mr. Manoj Joshi has a long way to go in public service, he is evidently not prepared to tangle with fixers like Ms. Aruna Roy and take up my public grievance with the integrity and dedication it deserves.

5) Accordingly, I would be obliged if my public grievance is therefore entrusted to some capable and upright officer, if there are any, in your Department for urgent and expeditious resolution.

6) I and members of my movement - the "India Against Corruption" are OUTRAGED at a particularly obnoxious and bizarre clause 1.4.1 in these guidelines, inserted at the behest of Ms. Aruna Roy, which is designed to target RTI Activists so as to get them killed and/or physically assaulted and threatened etc., and which I say should be withdrawn immediately since the present position is that an RTI request abates on the death of the applicant.

With best wishes

Yours faithfully

Sarbajit Roy
National Convenor
India Against Corruption, jan andolan

B/59 Defence Colony
New Delhi 110024
Tel : 09311448069

On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:
To:
JS(ATA)/DoPT

Kind Attn: Mr. Manoj Joshi

cc: indiaresists@lists.riseup.net

21-April-2013

Sir

I refer to the RTI Guidelines on suo-moto disclosure. I have carefully noted that these are stated to be based on the proceedings of the Task Force of May 2011 which allegedly included some civil society representatives.

http://ccis.nic.in/WriteReadData/CircularPortal/D2/D02rti/Suo_moto_disclosure-15042013.pdf

It seems all my several objections and public grievance made to you and your predecessor Mr Rajiv Kapoor that the so-called members of civil society organisations of the May 2011 Task Force are bogus and/or fake persons hand-picked by Ms. Aruna Roy (NAC/NCPRI) to push through a foreign financed transparency agenda, have been ignored / overlooked / not considered.

Let me reiterate for your benefit a few of my objections which were not considered while issuing these guidelines :-

1) NCRPI was meant to send 1 representative, they sent 3 (Mr. Venkatesh Nayak, Ms Rakshita  and Mr. Nikhil Dey).

2) Satark Nagrik Sangathan is a dummy constituent of NCPRI operating out of a small "scooter garage" measuring 4' x 6' of a DDA flat.

3) JOSH is another constituent of NCPRI, as is MAGP, which is closely associated with NCPRI.

4) "IT for Change"'s connection to NCPRI is unclear

On the other hand there is no dearth of civil society organisations working for RTI which openly disagree with and are not connected to NCPRI and who ought to have been represented.

I would therefore request you to kindly acknowledge my instant grievance and immediately recall your impugned Guidelines. In the alternative I would be left with no alternative but to complain against the officers who allow such blatant lobbying by Ms Aruna Roy to take place for extraneous considerations, and I would do so publicly.

PS; for your ready reference the text of one such complaint I made to Mr. Rajiv Kapoor by email on 9.June.2011 is appended below, and I hope the same was taken into consideration while formulating  these guidelines

Sarbajit Roy
National Convenor
India Against Corruption

B-59 Defence Colony
New Delhi 110024
Tel: 011-24334262

<text of email of 9.6.2011>

"To:
Mr Rajeev Kapur
Joint Secretary (ATA), DoPT/GoI

CONFIDENTIAL

Sir

SUBJECT: Concerning section 4 RTI Act Task Force

1) I thank you for the courtesy extended to me when I visited your office today in connection with my grievances regarding PG and RTI matters and consequent perception / accusations of impropriety ./ dishonesty. I am very concerned that no wrong / false accusations are made / perceived to be made.

2) For your ready reference, I am listing a few initial concerns of mine on the OM for composition of the Task Force for section 4 RTI Act implementation, and on which OM public comments are invited.

A) That many (perhaps all) of the 5 NGOs selected for the Task force seem to be hollow / fake organisations, none of which could be located by me in the NGO database maintained by the Planning Commission of India [http://ngo.india.gov.in/ngo_search1_ngo.php] having over 35,000 duly registered VOs / NGOs. It is pertinent that the Planning Commission requires a valid address and copy of the Incorporation Certificate of the NGOs for listing on the website, which further leads me to suspect that some or all of the 5 NGOs are unincorporated or having other deficiencies in their particulars / place of business.

B) That I was informed that some of the "fake" NGOs on the Task Force are demanding that they be "reimbursed" for expenses allegedly incurred by them instead of accepting grants / contracts as funding for their Task Force obligations. I apprehend that such demands will expose your Department to fresh accusations of corruption and money laundering, especially since no tenders (or other transparent procedures) have been followed to select these NGOs. I would humbly suggest that the financial systems / accounting processes / balance sheets of the concerned NGOs be properly assessed before any funds are released / reimbursed to them. It would not be out of place here to mention that I am given to understand that until very recently Mr Shailesh Gandhi (Central Information Commissioner) continued to jointly operate funding systems of the NCPRI running into lakhs of rupees despite the fact that Mr Nikhil Dey is ostensibly the.NCPRI convenor.

C) That many of the NGOs / representatives who attended the first meeting of the Task Force appear to have no verifiable expertise concerning non-compliance / implementation of section 4 of RTI Act. For example Mr Nikhil Dey, Ms Aheli Chowdhury, Ms. Pankti Jog, IT for Change etc have not filed any appeals / complaints at the CIC whatsoever (as per CIC website),  and so the average observer (hard pressed to know what other expertise they possess in this field) would trust that the DoPT would proactively arrange that the concerned NGOs detail their expertise in the field citing the appeals / complaints in which they are parties concerning section 4 implementation before the Information Commissions, and which could be disseminated via the website of the DoPT.

D) That there are many expert individuals who are domain experts in the practical problems of section 4 delivery and access. These persons can be easily located from public domain resources such as the decision database of the Central Information Commission or through their prior correspondence / RTIs to the DoPT etc. In my view such affected / expert individuals would be a far better resource to be directly tapped to determine the problems / ambiguties, if any, with section 4 RTI Act, and I am certain (as I know many of them) that they would share their knowledge freely / without charge if properly invited / requested instead of merely asking them to comment on minutes of meeting involving NGOs / CSOs.

E) That my close reading of the OM constituting the Section 4 Task Force shows that it specifically excludes the citizen stakeholders (ie. the statutory clients) from its participatory purview. In the circumstances it would be irregular to expect that aware individuals actively involved in RTI would voluntarily participate in a policy formulation process which deliberately excludes them (except as a token formality / afterthought) and which instead includes ersatz substitutes in their place.

f) There is also the issue of disclosure of information (intellectual property) submitted to the Government in confidence, and whether such submissions in the course of a public consultation / adversarial process can be unilaterally disclosed to private persons / NGOs in the absence of a pre-disclosed policy which prevents plagiarism / IP theft by NGOs / CSOs / other stakeholders. That this is a serious issue is evident from the CIC decision in "CIC/WB/A/2007/00731/LS dt 17.03.2009" titled "Rajinder Singh versus MoUD" where the CIC held that the MoUD could only disclose my pleadings in a court case available with the MoUD to my co-Petitioner Mr Rajinder Singh once the case was finally decided so as to protect my 3rd party rights. The question of whether such submissions / pleadings in this case can be disclosed during the course of adverserial proceedings is very complex and is also the subject of a pending SLP 30152/2010 in the Supreme Court where I am the 2nd Respondent, and for  which SLP the DoPT has consented to allow the Attorney General of India to represent the CIC against me. The linkage of the impugned decision to section 4 disclosure / repeated non-compliance is clear from page 5 of the following document [http://rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/WB-01062009-04.pdf]

G) That notwithstanding the above, I shall certainly submit my own views / experiences on section 4 issues which the Task Force is dealing with and on the expectation that it will be fairly considered

Yours faithfully

Sarbajit Roy

B/59 Defence Colony
New Delhi 110024

Tel : 09311448069 "




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