After
a decade long battle of wits
BPL
applicants in Odisha could avail their right to information free of cost
The Right to Information Act
that came into force on 12th
October, 2005 has the mandate
to enforce a transparent and
accountable system of governance in the
country by way of giving right
to the citizens to access the
information held by the Public
Authorities. As is well known, the
Section 7 (5) of the Act says, the BPL
people are required not to pay any kind of fee i.e., fee for application
{section 6 (1) }, fee towards cost of
information {section-7(1)} and fee towards cost of information in
electronic format. But while framing the Rules under RTI Act i.e.
Odisha RTI Rules, 2005, the
Government of Odisha made quite some deviations from the letter and
spirit of the parent Act. A glaring instance of one such deviation was the Rule
4, which explicitly provided for exempting the BPL people from paying only
application fee, while remaining mute in respect of other two kinds of fees.
Owing to this devious gap, the public authorities under Government of Odisha
insisted on collecting information fees from the BPL persons, who felt
obviously strained and discouraged to apply for information at all. To register
protest against such Orissa Rules a civil society forum called Orissa Soochana Adhikar Abhijan got
soon formed comprising young RTI activists and as well progressive minded
senior citizens of the state. It is
worth recollecting that the illustrious RTI protagonists at national level like
Mrs. Aruna Roy, Ms. Maja Daruwalla and Mr. Shailesh Gandhi had made a common
cause with Abhijan’s critique of Orissa RTI Rules 2005 and each of them did
also separately write to the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary to amend the
impugned Rules in tune with letter and spirit of the parent Act. Ironically enough, the collection of fees
from the BPL people, though patently illegal, was justified by the Odisha Information
Commission, who was supposed to recommend to the State Govt for undoing this
wrong. Sri D.N. Padhi, the first Odisha Chief Information
Commissioner, while deciding the
Complaint Cases Nos. 11 and 12 of 2006 made an arbitrary order that the
BPL people were required to pay the fees
towards cost of information, no matter
what was mentioned in proviso to Section 7(5).. However this
objectionable dictate of Sri Padhi was
vehemently protested by RTI Activists united under Orissa Soochana Adhikar Abhijan.
Besides, the Commission had also acquired a controversial image due to its
several other acts of omission and commission. The Abhijan submitted a
Memorandum to Governor, Odisha under Section 17 of the RTI Act urging action
against Sri D.N.Padhi on account of his untenable acts and decisions, taken in
flagrant violation of the provisions of RTI Act. Though no action was taken
against Sri Padhi, the Commission under the moral pressure of the strident
campaign by Abhijan made a recommendation to the State Govt. on 16.11.2007
to allow free of cost supply of
information to the BPL applicants upto 75 pages. . But the State Govt. did not give any
importance to this recommendation and
continued with their illegal practice of collecting the fees towards cost of
information from the BPL applicants. The above recommendation being only a
face-saving ploy of the Commission, neither the Commisson itself nor the
Government pursued it any further. However, undeterred by the negative attitude
of both Government and Commission towards BPL people, the Abhijan stepped up
its campaign for withdrawal of Orissa RTI Rules 2005 that illegally allowed the
collection of information fees from the BPL persons and several other
objectionable provisions like imposition of appeal fees, compulsory application
form, complete disclosure of identity of the applicant, user-unfriendly modes
of payment like treasury challan and judicial stamps, PIO’s reply in Form-B
lacking in calculation of fees payable by the applicant and rejection of an RTI
application by a PIO on any arbitrary ground. Meanwhile Sri Jagadanand Mohanty, a civil society veteran
joined in the Commission as a State Information Commissioner, but
ironically he too toed the anti-BPL line of the Government and as well that of
the State Chief Information Commissioner.
Surprisingly Mr. Mohanty didn’t have any qualms in making his anti-BPL
stance public. For instance, in May, 2013 while addressing an
RTI Workshop in the Collectorate Conference Hall, Malkangiri Mr.
Mohanty in the
capacity of State Information Commissioner went to the extent of justifying the Orissa
Rules’ denial of free-of-cost information to the BPL persons, on the ground
that the Commission had received a lot of complaints about the possible misuse
of this provision by the BPL people themselves. Sri Tapan Padhi a well known social activist
who happened to be present there, filed an RTI Application before Odisha Information Commission seeking
particulars of Complaint Cases, if any,
about the misuse of RTI as alleged by SIC Sri Jagadanand Mohanty.
Interestingly, the PIO of Commission, in reply, said that there was
no such information available in their
office. The campaign of the Abhijan took an intensified turn when Sri Tarun
Kanti Mishra, the next Chief Information Commissioner of Odisha while
adjudicating a Complaint case No.
2028/11 directed Sri Kunja Bikari Patra, a BPL Applicant and RTI Activist
of Nayagarh district to pay the fees for information, as against Sri Patra’s
passionate pleading to get the information free of cost as mandated under
Section 7 (5) of RTI Act. The direction
of the Commission was challenged by Sri Patra himself in Odisha High Court.
While disposing the case ( W.P.C. No.-
4797/13) on 3.7.13, the High Court quashed
the decision of the Commission as illegal and directed the concerned PIO to provide the
information free of cost in compliance
to the mandate of the parent Act. Under the pressure of Odisha High Court
Judgement the Orissa Information Commission made a direction to the State Govt.
on 31.3.14 to issue necessary notification in pursuance to the above direction
of Odisha High Court.
But astonishingly, the State
Government still sticked on to its old hackneyed practice of collecting the
cost of information from the BPL people
in naked violation of the above direction of Odisha High Court. The Orissa
Soochana Adhikar Abhijan however heightened its campaign through various fora
including the Gopabandhu Academy of Administration Bhubaneswar to impress upon
the State Government the utter untenability of making BPL persons pay the
information fees. At this juncture Sri
Dhoba Sahu, a BPL Applicant himself , inspired by Sri Dillip Das of Antodaya
Bhabanipatana, filed a Writ Petition (No. 12135/15) in Odisha High
Court seeking direction to the State Govt. to provide the
information free of cost to all BPL applicants. . On 23.7.15, the High Court gave the direction, second in order, to the State Govt. to comply
with Section 7 (5) of the RTI Act
within 3 months. On 21.9.15, the State
Govt. has finally issued the much awaited notification directing all the Public Authorities to
provide the BPL applicants with information free of cost under the RTI Act.
Thus, only a single nuisance of the notorious
Orissa RTI Rules 2005 could be done away with- following a decade-long
protracted and multipronged engagement of Orissa Soochana Adhikar Abhijan with
several constructional and statutory authorities- Governor, Chief Minister,
State Information Commission and Odisha High Court. The Abhijan’s campaign is
on and its flag-bearers are ready to march unto the last for ensuring that the
said Rules is replaced by one that is appropriately designed in tune with the
ctizen-friendlly letter and spirit of the parent Act.
Pradip
Pradhan
State
Convener
Odisha
Soochana Adhikar Abhijan
M-9937843482
Date-18.2.16
(
N.B.- It was presented in Regional
Workshop on Right to Information organised
by Administrative Training Institute,
Govt. of West Bengal at Kalkatta on 18.2.16 )
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