Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan
Plot No.-100,
Madhusudan Nagar, Bhubaneswar
Email- odishasoochanaadhikar@gmail.com
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To
The Hon’ble Governor, Odisha
Raj Bhawan, Bhubaneswar
Sub- Memorandum seeking dismissal of State Chief
Information Commissioner and other Information Commissioners Sri Pabitra
Mandal, Smt. Kalpana Pattnaik and Sri Jagannath Rath from the office of Odisha
Information Commission for their anti-citizen, illegal, reckless and mindless
orders passed by the way of disposing off the Complaint and Second Appeal cases
and misbehavior shown by them to the Common Citizens
Sir
We the members of Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan ( a
State-level platform of Civil Society Organisations and RTI Activists
spearheading campaign for effective implementation of Right to Information Act
in Odisha) present this memorandum before your august office in course of
our public protest Dharana organized
against mal-functioning of Odisha Information Commission at Lower PMG,
Bhubaneswar from 16th to 18th March, 2026 seeking your
judicious action in the greater interest of transparency in our state administration
and ensuring anti-corruption regime in Odisha.
This memorandum is submitted seeking intervention of His excellency as
Constitutional head of the state to conduct a thorough inquiry by way of
constituting an inquiry referring to High Court under section 17 of the Right
to Information Act into allegation of inefficiency, impropriety of Odisha
Information Commission and mindless, reckless and illegal orders passed by them without application of mind and denying justice to the aggrieved citizens due to
lack of their expertise and experience and knowledge about
RTI Act.
1. As per section 15(5) of the Right to Information Act, the State Chief
Information Commissioner and the State Information Commissioners appointed
shall be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience
in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance. It is
believed that in view of this provision, the Selection Committee headed by the
Chief Minister selected and recommended name of Sri Manoj Parida as State Chief
Information Commissioner and other three Sri Pabitra Mandal, Smt. Kalpana Pattnaik and Sri
Pranabindu Acharya as
State Information Commissioners
following which His Excellency
appointed them in April, 2025.
2. Within six months of their functioning in terms of
hearing and disposal of Second Appeal and Complaint cases and writing orders,
their inefficiency, incapability and infirmity of mind is quite visible. Lack
of their knowledge, expertise,
experience and judicial acumen is
reflected during hearing of the cases and writing of each order passed in SA
and Complaint cases which are uploaded in the Commission’s website. The orders passed by them lack analysis and
interpretation of law, suffers from huge grammatical errors, anomalies and
incongruities. We attach herewith the copy of the orders of the cases for
the kind perusal of His Excellency to understand the naked inefficiency of the
SCIC and Information commissioners. We the RTI Activists and common citizens
feel very ashamed having gone through these useless orders which are supposed
to be historic orders and placed in website of the Commission for reference for
future generation, as it is done by all judicial bodies and quasi-judicial
bodies across the country.
3. The State Chief Information Commissioners and State
Information Commissioners are so inefficient that they could not call dictation of the proceedings of the
case and could not write orders. The substandard and ill-paid staff are engaged
to write the proceedings and order of the Commission. These orders are not only
confusing but meaningless and devastating and lacks any clarity.
4. The dogmatism prevailing in their mind is that as if
they are most knowledgeable and know everything and they are superior creature
in God’s creation. In the month of May, 2025, just few days of their joining,
they dismissed 850 Complaint cases without hearing and without giving
opportunity of hearing to the Complainants which is the serious violation of
Natural Justice and fundamental right of the citizens. As per Odisha Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2006
{Rule-6(4)}, “the Commission
shall not reject the complaint, unless a reasonable opportunity of being heard
is given to the complainant. Sri Manoj Parida, SCIC
masterminded this unethical and unconstitutional practice and influenced other
Information commissioners ( the Information commissioners appointed by V.K.Pandian during previous BJD Govt.) to
follow it. At the stroke of the pen and without understanding the cases, all
these information Commissioners dismissed these cases leaving the
poor-complainant-citizens in hopeless world who have cast their vote to BJP to
come to power.
5. The story of
their illegalities and mindless work does not end here. In the month of
June, 2025, Sri Manoj Parida issued illegal and arbitrary notice seeking
opinion of the complainant / appellant whether they want hearing of the cases
or not. The notice issued by the Commission is as follows.
“The full Commission in the meeting dated 13.6.25 reviewed the pending
cases in the Commission. It was noted that there are nearly 6000 cases,
pertaining to year 2021 and 2022 which are waiting for hearing. It was noted
that during hearing many of the appellants are neither appearing nor seeking
adjournment. X xx x x x x. The Commission has decided to dispose of all these
old pending cases and second appeal/complaint as closed unless the appellant/
complainant specifically wishes to continue the matter. The appellant is
requested to inform the Commission on or before 15th August, 2025 if
he wishes to continue the matter. Such intimation can be sent to the Commission
by ordinary post or e-mail.” As per provision of section 18 and 19 of the
RTI Act and Odisha Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules,2006, on
receipt of the Complaint and Second Appeal, the Commission will register the
cases, hear it and pass appropriate order in order to give justice to the
citizens. There is no such provision seeking opinion of the complainant whether
they want hearing of the cases. However, after receiving the notice, RTI
Application was filed in the office of the Information Commission seeking copy
of the decision taken on 13.6.25. The PIO, office of the Commission responded
that “no such document is available and this decision is completely
informal”. Again, RTI Application
was filed on 30.8.25 seeking information about total no. of complainants and
Appellants responded /expressed their willingness for hearing and total no. of
cases rejected. Astonishingly, the PIO did not supply any information. The
office of the Information Commission is far from transparency and maintains
utmost secrecy in its functioning. This
is kind of horrible situation of the Commission and the ignominious Manoj
Parida has not only destroyed the
credibility of the Institution and made the functioning of the Commission
farce.
6. Without contributing anything for effective
implementation of RTI Act, Sri Manoj Parida, SCIC is found busy in making false
and misleading press release to the media
glorifying the Commission. In the month of December, 2025, the office of
the Commission gave a press release declaring that the Commission has taken
outstanding decision imposing ban on a poor RTI User who had filed several
complaints and Appeals in the Commission due to denial of the information.
But the Hon’ble High Court quashed the
order of the Commission terming it as illegal and an attack on fundamental
right of the Citizen (WPC No. 29216 of 2025
disposed 15.1.2026).
7. In the event of mal-functioning of Odisha
Information Commission and reckless orders passed by the Commission, there is
widespread discontentment among the citizens who are denied the information by
the PIOs even after orders being passed by the Commission. The orders are
passed on same date of hearing giving direction to the PIO to provide the
information and without waiting the compliance report from the PIO and fixing
another date for compliance. When the order of the Commission is not complied
and the information is not provided by the PIO, the
aggrieved-complainant/Appellant approached the Commission what to do in event
of non-compliance of order of the Commission. The concerned Information
Commissioners expressed their helplessness and said nothing could be done as
the case is closed. It has become
common practice of each Information Commissioners and the people are seen
moving around the office of the Commission to get a piece of information, as
the Commission closed the case without ensuring information.
8. The inefficiency and incapacity of Sri Manoj
Parida, SCIC is very visible as he just fixes only 10 cases for hearing in each
day and completes the hearing within 30
minutes and enjoys the office chamber and leaves office at 3 pm. He never calls
dictation of the case and also does not know how to write the order / decision
of the case. He left this important work to the Law officer and just puts
signature without verifying what is written by the Law Officer. This is the deplorable functioning of head
of the Commission, forget the
performance of other Information Commissioners who are determined to follow his
footstep devastating sanctity
of our cherished bellowed Institution.
9. Sri Jagannath Rath, appointed by V.K.Pandian regime during previous Govt. is
the most useless person who lacks minimum standard to be Information
Commissioner. He is a cancer patient, physically and mentally
unfit and does not have ability to hear
the case and pass orders without application of mind. Our experience shows that
nobody has got justice from him rather humiliated by him. He never imposes penalty on erring PIOs and
rather threatens and misbehaves the common people. The most despicable character
in the history of the Commission is Jagannath Rath who needs to be removed by His Excellency
just to protect the credibility of the
Institution.
10. Last but not least, we appraise His excellency
that this BJP Govt. has come to power on slogan of Odia Asmita ( Pride of
Odisha). Our Hon’ble Chief Minister has directed all the offices to make all official
correspondence in Odia language. The common people hailed from rural and tribal
areas are demanding before the Information Commission that the orders passed by the Commission in
their cases should be provided in Odia language. As the SCIC and other
Information commissioners are sons and daughter of the soil and very poor in
English writing, they can easily write
their orders in Odia and pronounce their orders in Odia language in the
open court. But Alas; they suffer from
colonial hegemony and write in English which are in illegible, indecipherable and does not carry any
meaning. We urge His excellency to direct the Information Commission to make
their functioning, orders, correspondence in Odia language in the spirit of
odia Asmita.
We request the Hon’ble Governor, Odisha to
conduct an inquiry into the allegations raised in this memorandum and take
appropriate action against the Chief Information Commissioner and other Information Commissioners in order to protect the most progressive law
before being vandalised by the disgruntled Information Commission. We look forward for detailed discussion, if
His excellency desires.
Yours sincerely
Members of Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan
Date-18.3.26
