Office of Chief Justice of India is covered under RTI now

Maybe it is coincidence, but two days before retirement of CJI, the office of CJI has been agreed to be a Public Authority under RTI Act.  See recent decision by CIC below.  Also the important points are made bold below:

CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Appeal No. CIC/WB/A/2009/000279 dated 14.3.2009
Right to Information Act 2005 – Section 19
Appellant       -    Shri Nemi Chand Jain
Respondent    -    Supreme Court of India (SCI)
Decision announced: 10.5.2010

Facts:
Shri Nemi Chand Jain of Jaipur, Rajasthan applied to the Registrar,
Supreme Court of India on 27.11.08 seeking the following information:
“Copy of complete file relating to complaint dated 2.4.2007 against
Justice Shri Shiv Kumar Sharma, Rajasthan High Court, Jaipur.”
To this Shri Nemi Chand Jain received a response from CPIO Shri Raj Pal
Arora, Addl. Registrar dated 18.12.08 informing him as follows:
“I write to inform you that the complaints against Hon’ble Judges of
the High Court or Supreme Court are not handled by the Registry.
Therefore, the information is not held by or under the control of the
Registry and the CPIO, Supreme Court of India cannot accede to
your request.”

Aggrieved, Shri Nemi Chand Jain moved an appeal on 30.12.08 before
Appellate Authority, Supreme Court of India on the following grounds:
“As per Section 6(3) of the RTI Act the Learned CPIO should have
transferred the application within five days to the concerned public
authority with whom the information is available and inform the
Appellant / Applicant.”

Upon this, Appellate Authority Shri M. P. Bhadran in his order of 17.1.09 in
appeal No. 2 of 2009 decided as follows:
“Since the Hon’ble CJI is not a Public Authority within the meaning
of Sec. 2(h) of the RTI Act the application cannot be transferred as
per Section 6(3) of the RTI Act as requested by the appellant.  I find
that no error in the impugned order.  There is no merit in this appeal
and it is only to be dismissed.”

Appellant Shri Jain has then moved his second appeal before us with the
following prayer:
“It is prayed that the impugned order dated 17.1.09 passed by 
Learned Appellate Authority and order dated 18.12.2008
passed by Learned CPIO may kindly be quashed and set 
aside, and the Learned CPIO may be directed to transfer the 
application to the appropriate Authority with whom the
information sought by Appellant is available.”

This prayer is grounded on the following contentions:
“Because the Hon’ble CJI is Public Authority within the meaning of
Section 2(b) of the RTI Act and hence the impugned order is liable
to the set aside.”

The appeal was heard by videoconference with Jaipur on 10.5.2010. The
following are present:

Appellant
Shri Nemi Chand Jain

Respondents
1. Shri Raj Pal Arora, CPIO / Addl. Registrar
2. Ms. Asha Ahuja, RTI Branch Officer, SCI
3. Shri Devadatt Kamat, Advocate

Shri Devadatt Kamat, Learned Counsel for the Supreme Court presented
his vakalatnama, which has been taken on record. Shri Kamat also submitted
that subsequent to the decision in the present case, it has been agreed by the
Supreme Court of India that the Office of Chief Justice of India is indeed a public authority within the meaning of sec. 2(h) of the RTI Act.  In light of this, the
information sought by appellant Shri Nemi Chand Jain was that the complaint of
2.4.07 against Justice Shri Shiv Kumar Sharma of the Rajasthan High Court,
Jaipur had in fact been received, seen by the Chief Justice of India and lodged.
There is no file on the complaint.  Upon this, appellant Shri Nemi Chand Jain
submitted that he had no further information to seek.

DECISION NOTICE

It is now established and agreed to by all parties that the office of Chief
Justice of India is a Public Authority within the meaning of Sec. 2(h) of the RTI Act, as part of the Supreme Court of India.  The order of Appellate Authority, Shri
M. P. Bhadran on appeal No. 2 of 2009 dated 17.1.09 is, therefore, set aside.
Learned Counsel for the Supreme Court of India has also provided the
information sought by appellant Shri Nemi Chand Jain, in the hearing.  The
appeal is thus allowed.  There will be no costs.

Announced in the hearing.  Notice of this decision be given free of cost to
the parties.
(Wajahat Habibullah)
Chief Information Commissioner
10.5.2010
Authenticated true copy.  Additional copies of orders shall be supplied against
application and payment of the charges, prescribed under the Act, to the CPIO
of this Commission.
(Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar)
Joint Registrar
10.5.2010

AP Governor says RTI used for blackmail -- file RTI on that

I will take excerpt of news below and refute the points made by governor of AP.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/governor-says-rti-used-blackmail-tool-655

Hyderabad, May 10: The Governor, Mr ESL Narasimhan, condemned the misuse of the Right to Information (RTI) Act by some people, who have “vested interests”.

He said the RTI Act has become a tool to “blackmail” the government and its machinery.

“I can say with complete authority that the RTI Act is used for blackmailing people. If that was not the case, why do the same group of people apply for the RTI Act so often,” he asked while speaking at the Administrative Staff College of India, after inaugurating the Forum for Good Governance.

Ok.  The logic is that if some people file RTI so often, they must be using it for blackmail!  Well, governor ji, maybe you forget but the 86 year old ex-governor of Andhra Pradesh had left his office few months back after some pictures of his romps with young women were shown on TV.  Such was the secrecy after that event that the media was stopped by High court order to show any further footage etc of the episode.  When government along with judiciary is hell-bent on stopping people from knowing what is going on within government, RTI is the only forum available for people to find out the truth behind government’s inner workings.

Citing his own experiences on the misuse of the Act, Mr Narasimhan said: “I receive RTI applications that seek information on the dinner I hosted for my guests. They ask me to disclose the guest-list, the menu and the expenditure incurred for the purpose.” He said is not spared even when he visits temples. “The other day, I went to a temple. A person filed an RTI seeking information about whether my visit to the temple was an official visit? If so, who did I meet and what was the discussion? I replied that it was not an official visit. I met the Almighty at the temple and had long deliberations with him. I also prayed to him to please give good sense to such people,” he remarked.

You may think it is irritating to get RTIs about your dinners.  But do not forget that people have very little faith in about people in government regarding use of taxpayer funds at their disposal.  Even an ex-minister Shashi Tharoor was found to be staying in 5-star hotels instead of finding a more reasonable accommodation given the austerity drive of government in place at the time.  If government was more transparent of less cruel with public money, people will have no desire to waste their time in filing RTIs asking about dinners hosted by you.  That trust has yet to be built by government representatives.

Judiciary: a laggard in implementing RTI

It is not only the Chief Justice of India who wants his own office out of purview of RTI.  Even some of high courts are quite uncooperative about honouring RTI.

Following news story sums it all.  When it comes to implementation of right to information act (RTI), the courts are totally clueless and unhelpful to applicants.  The fact that this happened with a high court bench shows the high-handedness and aloofness which has become a characteristic of Indian judiciary.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/article391264.ece

M. Shanthi of Karur had filed an RTI application on February 25 seeking details of a civil miscellaneous appeal filed by an insurance company in 2001 against a judgment passed by a lower court earlier. Stating that the case was not listed for hearing for a long time, she sought to know whether it was still pending or had been disposed of.

N. Vijayakumar, Deputy Registrar (Administration) of the Bench and also Assistant Public Information Officer, replied to the application on March 3. Instead of giving a direct answer to the question, he asked the woman applicant to approach her advocate for obtaining the required information.

Not satisfied with the reply, Ms. Shanthi filed an appeal, under the RTI Act, before the Registrar (Administration) of the High Court Bench on March 13, 2010.

Subsequently, she received another letter from R. Susheela Devi, Deputy Registrar (RTI) dated March 31 asking her to come to the Bench during office hours at the earliest for verification of her residential address and signature.

The issue gains significance in view of the fact that there is no provision in the RTI Act which entitles a public information officer to ask an applicant to prove his/her identity. Section 6(2) of the Act categorically states a person seeking information need not give any personal details except those that were required for contacting him.

Section 6(2) of RTI Act, 2005 is given below:

(2) An applicant making request for information shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those that may be necessary for contacting him. 

The only main requirement in RTI Act is that applicant be a citizen of India.  Even an Indian living abroad can file an RTI through Indian embassy.  But by asking the applicant to come personally to office, the RTI official of high court has shown either their incompetence, or their complete disregard for law of the land.

Not the end of story regarding Cash at door scam

Only in India if a High court judge gets Rs 15 lakh cash delivered at door, the powers that be will look the other way!  Now it seems the law ministry is siding with CPIO of Supreme Court on the matter of disclosure of information under RTI.  If CJI was not enough in holding lid on happenings inside Supreme Court, now law ministry is backing him up as a spokesperson.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_secrecy-in-yadav-case-moily-supports-chief-justice-of-india_1364645

CPIO had earlier this month denied information to RTI applicant Abhishek Shukla regarding chief justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan’s inputs on transferring Punjab and Haryana high court judge Nirmal Yadav to another HC, saying the matter was confidential.

Yadav is mired in a controversy related to the scam in which Rs15 lakh was recovered from outside the door of her official residence nearly 19 months ago.

On Sunday, the law ministry defended CPIO, saying the CJI input on Yadav was indeed confidential and could not be made public.
CPIO had told Shukla that his query, whether CBI approached CJI in connection with the scam, was “confidential and exempted from disclosure under section 8(1)(e) and (j) of the RTI Act”. “You have no right to access the said information,” CPIO said.

The ministry, which has been working hard to introduce certain amendments in the RTI Act, which Congress president Sonia Gandhi has termed “landmark”, said the CJI input to law
minister Veerappa Moily on the issue was “in the nature of advice tendered by the cabinet” which is exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act.

The ministry cited section 8(1)(i) of the Act in its defence. The section exempts “disclosure of cabinet papers, including records of deliberations of the council of ministers, secretaries and other officers”, provided “the decisions of the council of ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken and the matter is complete”.

Meanwhile, in a setback to the moves by a section in the government to put a lid on the scam, a special court in Chandigarh refused last Friday to accept the CBI plea for closing the case. Judge Darshan Singh asked CBI to probe the case further.

Appeal to PM to allow RTIs from Indian citizens all over the world

 

Appeal to PM to allow RTIs from Indian citizens all over the world

Appeal to PM
To
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India
thru
Ms. Meera Shankar
Ambassador
2107 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.,
Washington D.C.
USA

April 2010

Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh,

We the Citizens of India staying abroad would like to thank the UPA Government for enactment of the ‘Right to Information (RTI) Act’ in 2005. We also trust that you can recognize the legitimate desire of Indian living abroad to exercise their franchise and to have a voice in the governance of India.

However, we regret to inform you that even after over 4 years of RTI act in place, Indian citizens living abroad are unable to access information as per their right, in the absence of procedure/rules to be framed by the government for payment of RTI fees in foreign currency from abroad.

It is to be appreciated that the issue applies to all Indian Citizens’ abroad that includes citizens who may be residing abroad for a short visits, long stay for education and job purposes, and even officials posted in Indian Missions or on deputation to International bodies and so on.

Our suggestion is that just as the government has facilitated APIOs by the postal department in India for all Central Public Authorities, along similar lines, the government should facilitate an APIO in each Indian Mission/Post to act as nodal officer for accepting RTI and appeal applications for onward dispatch to concerned Public Authorities in India. The RTI fee as applicable can be deposited by the applicants in the respective mission/post in local currency (FE) equivalent to rupees. If required, applicants may be asked to pay for postal charges for dispatch of applications to concerned public authority in India.

Alternatively, we suggest arrangements may be made by the MEA, the administrative ministry for Indian Missions abroad, for missions to accept RTI fees in foreign currency from applicants filing RTI to central public authorities using the same procedure as they are hitherto doing for RTI applications concerning their own ministry. In this case mission’s role would be to accept the fee along with a copy of passport to verify citizenship (as they do now) and to issue a receipt/E-receipt to the applicant for the fee. Thereafter either the mission or the RTI applicant with proof of fee paid, can forward the application to the concerned central public authority (PA) online (where facilities exist) or by post and deal directly with the PA. Any additional costs for providing the information can be remitted to the mission in the same way and the receipt/E-receipt given by the mission can serve as proof of payment.

In this context, we have also written to the Hon’ble Ministers of MEA and MOIA respectively. Presently, Central Information Commission (CIC), MEA, MOIA and DoPT are all alive to this problem. Social & RTI Activist Commodore (Retd.) Lokesh. K. Batra living in Noida (INDIA), conversant with the issue, has agreed to liaise with the authorities.

Since the issue involves multiple agencies, we humbly seek your intervention to resolve this issue speedily and enable our right to know as bestowed by the RTI Act to all citizens. It is with information that citizens living in India and abroad can participate more effectively in nation building activities.

Sincerely,
Indian citizens residing abroad.

Judges really need a course in RTI!

When I said in earlier post on this blog that judges need a course in RTI, I thought it applied to a few of them.  But now I am seriously thinking that many judges are used to conducting them imperiously and above any kind of answerability.  They do not think that Right to Information is a fundamental right of citizens and cannot be denied without good grounds.  Maybe they should spend some time reading the RTI act.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/58410/gulbarga-judge-rejects-rti-application.html

The information sought included index catalogues of files, a public authority is bound to maintain under Section 4 (1) (a) of the RTI Act, and suo motu declaration of office functioning required to be obliged under Section 4 (1) (b) of the RTI Act; copy of the notification/order appointing PIO and Assistant PIOs, and copy of the record retention schedule.

Though the information sought was specific and clear, the PIO in his letter dated
November 13, 2009 stated that the application for issue of copies of documents has been rejected by an order of the Principal District and Sessions Judge for want of full particulars.

PM Manmohan Singh will lose respect at this rate

Recent news of PM wanting to cut citizens’ rights under RTI act is highly deplorable.   This is the same PM who has reportedly vouched for aam-aadmi in his speeches, and at one instance chided Indian business houses on dangers of crony capitalism.  Well, now he has to answer who will benefit by following actions:

1. Chief justice of India will be outside purview of RTI act.  Isn’t it some kind of cronyism developing between Executive and Judiciary?

2. No frivolous queries will be allowed.  The courts in India have 3 crore pending cases.  No body checks how many are frivolous.  In elections, 100s of candidates can stand for an election seat.  Inspite of huge cost incurred due to so many candidates, no body condemns that some of the candidates are ‘frivolous’.  But when it comes to RTI, the frivolous ones must be disallowed.  And of course, it goes without saying, the information behind decision to decide what is frivolous will not be disclosed so that the bureaucrats are safe.  So it is some kind of crony bureaucratism.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/pm-says-no-to-sonia-wants-rti-act-amended/111065-37.html?from=tn

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi are reportedly split over amending the Right to Information Act.

In a rare instance, the Prime Minister has said a firm no to Sonia's suggestions and has decided to go ahead with amendments in the RTI Act.

Singh has reportedly written a letter to Sonia saying that changes are needed in the RTI Act after the Congress President expressed her doubts and made it clear that she does not want it to be amended.

The proposed changes in RTI by the Prime Minister will keep the Chief Justice of India out of purview of the Act.

Some of the amendments proposed to the RTI Act are:

• Chief Justice of India would be outside the purview of the Act.

• Discussions on policy decisions cannot be made public.

• No frivolous queries would be allowed and necessary changes in the Act would have to be made.

The Congress President, who is also the Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, had written to the Prime Minister about two months ago explaining her why she does not want any amendment to the Act, which was a landmark legislation of UPA 1 and seen as her baby.

Her views on not amending the RTI have been endorsed by NGOs and the Left parties.

But with the Prime Minister himself stepping in and saying no to her, changes in the Act seem inevitable.

Judges need a course in RTI Act, or maybe fundamental rights!

It was horrifying to read the judgment below, where an accused husband was given bail but with the condition that he will not file RTI regarding her wife or her family members (see bold sentence in judgment below).

http://courtnic.nic.in/dhcorder/dhcqrydisp_O.asp?pn=10933&yr=2010

   IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
  BAIL APPLN. 2102/2009
  RAJESH VERMA .....
  Petitioner
  Through: Mr. Kunal Duggal and Mr. C.M. Verma
versus
  STATE ..... Respondent
  Through: Ms. Fizani Husain, APP.
  ASI Shyamlal Bhardwaj, PS Lajpat Nagar.
  Mr. Ajay Digpal for the complainant.
  CORAM:
   HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW
   O R D E R
   18.01.2010
  Mediation is reported to have failed.
  The petitioner is the accused in the FIR of offences under Sections
  498A/406/34 of the IPC. He is working as a senior scientist with CSIR. According
  to the complainant wife, she is living separately from petitioner since 26th
  November, 2008. FIR was lodged on 4th June, 2009. The petitioner as well as the
  complainant wife had been married earlier. Each of them has a grown up child
  from the earlier marriage.
  The APP contends that no jewellery has been recovered from the
  petitioner. The counsel for the complainant wife contends that the petitioner is
  not paying any maintenance also. The petitioner had on 12th November, 2009
  before this court paid Rs.50,000/- to the complainant wife. It is further
  contended that the petitioner is harassing the complainant wife and her family.
  In the circumstances aforesaid, it is directed that in the event of
  arrest, the petitioner be released on bail on furnishing security bond of
  Rs.10,000/- to the satisfaction of the arresting officer. The following further
  conditions are agreed by the petitioner:-
  a. That the petitioner shall not file any complaint and/or RTI enquiries qua the
  affairs of the complainant wife or any of her family members.
  b. That the petitioner shall continue to pay a sum of Rs.10,000/- to the
  complainant wife w.e.f. 1st December, 2009 and till the date of decision on the
  application for interim maintenance in maintenance proceedings stated to have
  been separately instituted. The amounts so paid shall be adjusted in the interim
  maintenance if any to which complainant wife is so found entitled. It is
  clarified that the amount of Rs.10,000/- per month offered by petitioner as a
  condition for bail, shall not influence the court where application of
  complainant wife for maintenance is pending.
  c. The petitioner shall not leave Delhi without the permission of IO and shall
  deposit his passport with the IO.
  Copy of this order be given dasti to the counsel for parties.
  RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW,J
  JANUARY 18, 2010
  pp

Let’s look at it from the following viewpoints:

1. It is a well accepted principle of law that a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty.  Will the judges curb freedom of RTI if the accused was a powerful person?
2. Further, Right to Information is a fundamental right derived from Article 19 of Indian constitution, and also considered a fundamental right from various international conventions.  World over, fundamental rights cannot be curtailed except under very special situations of national security and the like.
3. Here it seems an accused if fit to be granted bail, but he is not fit enough to exercise his fundamental right of RTI.  He can exercise his right to vote, stand for elections, and so on, but only not be able to exercise RTI!  Under what rule can a judge trample upon fundamental right of a citizen, especially considering that no rationale or reason for the order has been given in judgment.
4. Right to Information grants an Indian citizen to get public information from public authorities.  Such information is already in public domain and no one can be said to be harassed or inconvenienced by disclosure of such public information.  The Right to Information is not right on private information of another person, but on public information which cannot be said to be private property of any person.  Then how can a judge decide that a particular person cannot file for RTI on another person.  The RTI is only on public information.
5. It seems clear that the judge has tried to cut off the source of information this accused man could use to prove himself innocent.  Read this story about how a man was able to prove his innocence using RTI in a very similar situation where he was accused by his wife in a dowry case.

Our hopes are that other judges will read this blog post and understand that their actions and judgments are being watched by citizens.

Thumbs up to Delhi HC: Supreme court credibility ... further down the slopes

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday reinforced its earlier verdict that the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was within the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.




http://www.deccanherald.com/content/46384/supreme-court-loses-rti-battle.html

Comments:What was a single judge order of Delhi HC has not got the stamp of approval of a 3 judge bench of Delhi HC.

Further,

The apex court registry is likely to challenge this judgment before the Supreme Court.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justices Vikramjeet Sen and S Muralidhar said that the CJI cannot be said to have a fiduciary relationship (between a trustee and a beneficiary) with other judges.

Comments: Now the options of the Supreme Court are to appeal against this decision, and finally to get its back broken completely! Because even if they win somehow in appeal to Supreme Court, sooner or later a law or mechanism will be passed to break this nexus where asset declaration of judges to CJI are being held like they are a top-secret information. History will judge the decision to appeal to SC as a very absurd one at best.

Further,

According to the bench, judges of the superior courts should make public their assets as they were not “less accountable” than the judicial officers of the lower courts, who were bound by service rules to declare assets.

Comments: So if you are still in doubt if judges of lower courts are bound to do more disclosure, here is presented a quote from Justice Shylendra Kumar's article on RTI for judges' disclosure of assets (here):

In fact, it is a misnomer to think that the judges of the superior courts are not ready to disclose their assets. The judges of the High Courts are appointed after being drawn from the Bar or on promotion from the subordinate judiciary in the ratio of 2: 1 which means that for every promotee judge, there will be two judges appointed directly from the Bar. Judges promoted from the subordinate judiciary happen to be occupants of the post of district judge and every district Judge is required to declare his/her assets every year, as part of the conditions of service. The judges drawn from the Bar and appointed to the High Courts would all have disclosed their income for the previous five years. This is an essential requirement.

Supreme Court vs Chief Information Commissioner -- does it get better or worse from here?

Supreme court has moved appeal via Special leave petition (SLP) against RTI's Chief information commissioner (CIC) to disclose details on appointments of judges to supreme court.

The two appeals by SC are given as below from the news item:

In one appeal, it challenged the CIC order directing the SC to give details of the decision not recommending the elevation of Justice A P Shah, Chief Justice of Delhi HC, to SC even as the collegium headed by the CJI suggested names of chief justices of four other HCs for appointment to the apex court.

In the second appeal, it sought setting aside of the CIC order asking SC to furnish details to RTI applicant S C Agrawal of the correspondence between the CJI and Justice R Regupathy of Madras HC on the incident in the court in Chennai when the judge had alleged that a Union minister had tried to influence him in a case pertaining to grant of anticipatory bail to a person.

Full news below:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC-stays-CIC-order-on-judges-appointment-and-correspondence/articleshow/5299228.cms

RTI versus Supreme Court of India - Round two

Round one of RTI (Right to information) vs Supreme court of India was practically won by RTI when Delhi High court upheld that information on judges' assets held by SC was under purview of RTI.

Read full news below about Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) asking Supreme Court (SC) to reveal details about selection of judges to the SC:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/CIC-asks-SC-to-name-minister-who-tried-to-influence-Madras-HC-judge/articleshow/5269280.cms

Excerpt from the news:

NEW DELHI: In a ruling that seeks to lift the veil of secrecy from judicial functioning, Central Information Commission has directed Supreme
Twitter Facebook Share
Email Print Save Comment
Court to disclose information relating to judges' appointments and the complete correspondence between Madras High Court judge Justice R Raghupati and the Chief Justice of India (CJI). Justice Raghupati had claimed in open court that a Union minister had called him to influence a case. The CIC has asked for the information to be given within 15 days.

Describing the appointment of judges as that of overriding public interest, CIC recently asked SC to make public the records of appointing three judges to the apex court who superseded their seniors.

In the first case, chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah ruled that personal details could be severed but correspondence between authorities relating to appointment of Justices H L Dattu, A K Ganguly and R M Lodha, who superseded Justices A P Shah, A K Patnaik and V K Gupta, should be made public. RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal had asked for the information but his plea was rejected by the SC registry saying it did not have the information and later pleaded before the commission that it was held in fiduciary relationship with the CJI hence could not be given under the RTI Act.

"The recommendation of appointment of Justices is decidedly a public activity conducted in the overriding public interest. Hence, the plea of seeking exemption under the definition of fiduciary relationship cannot stand, and even if accepted in technical terms, will not withstand the test of public interest,'' the ruling said.


Also further in news:

In the second case, CIC has sought from the SC the name of the Union minister who had allegedly approached Justice Raghupati to influence his decision, and the complete correspondence with CJI in the matter.

Justice Raghupati had alleged in open court a few months ago that a Union minister, through his lawyer, spoke to him on telephone seeking favours in a case being probed by CBI.

Comments: It is good that RTI is being used to finally break the strong resistance being put up by Supreme court of India in name of judicial independence. Wonder from who they need judicial independence? From citizens?

RTI act -- positive amendments sought

From news below:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/208486/RTI-Act-to-be-mended.html

One of the main suggestions of the commission, which has been included in the list of proposed amendments, is that the Act should be made more NRI-friendly. “The NRIs, being Indian nationals, can apply for information under the RTI Act, but the means for access for them are very unsatisfactory. Where do they pay the fee of Rs 10, and how? When they approach Indian embassies, they are seldom helped.”


Comments: This is an excellent idea. The RTI act is applicable to all Indian citizens. To deny its use to NRIs or even Indian citizens who are travelling and outside India is not a good idea.

The Government is also planning to reduce the number of organisations mentioned in the Second Schedule of the RTI Act which are exempt from disclosure norms. At present, there are 22 security and intelligence organisations which do not have the general obligation to disclose information unless it is a matter of human rights violation or corruption. These include RAW, Intelligence Bureau, DRDO, SPG, CRPF and CISF. Sources said organisations like Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) could be taken off the Schedule.

Comments: Again this is in interest of more disclosure of information and fits in with fundamental right to information. Denial of information should be an exception and therefore most departments of government should be openly accessible as far as their decision making is concerned.

WikipediaWictionaryChambers (UK)Google imagesGoogle defineThe Free DictionaryJoin exampleWordNetGoogleUrban DictionaryAnswers.comrhymezone.comMerriam-WebsterWisegeek

CrPC Amendment Bill 2008, Police cannot arrest arbitrarily

The much debated CrPC Amendment Bill 2008, which contained radical reforms in Section 41.1 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the area of powers of arrest by police after the third report of the National Police Commission raised serious concerns on unnecessary arrests by police and told that 60% of arrests by police are unnecessary and are accounting for 43.2% of jail expenditure.

The amended section says,

1. The police cannot arrest anyone before sending him a NOTICE OF APPEARANCE and in case the accused fails to comply with the notice, the police have to record reasons of arrest in court diary.
2. Also the accused have to be supplied with an FIR copy, a lawyer of his choice and a proper medical checkup.

In the year 2007, 68 lakh persons were arrested out of which 40 lakh were unnecessary as per the National Police Commission report.

Read details here including link to the RTI response from Ministry of Law & Justice
Police can no longer arrest arbitrarily