Whether Information Commissions or Information Commissioners are only photocopy-providers of Government documents/record?......
(Part-2)
It has been discussed earlier: what kind of information is to be given and what are the aspects of Information, on which Information is to be provided essentially, all this has been clearly spelled out in the RTI Act. In continuation to it, it is argued that Section 4 of RTI Act clearly provides the methodology of keeping / managing the Record and its regular maintenance by the Public Authority. Section 4 (1)(d) explicitly mentions that Public Authority shall provide reasons of all its administrative and quasi-judicial decisions to the affected persons. It, thus, makes clear that Public Authority has to positively provide reasons of its all administrative and quasi-judicial decisions, because the helping verb “Shall” had been put there in English Text. When the Public Authority has to positively provide reasons of its all administrative and quasi-judicial decisions, which makes it clear that these should have been positively recorded by the officers of the Public Authorities, rather those reasons should also have been uploaded “suo-moto” on internet as per Section 4(1)(b). Thus, this Section warns every officer of the Public Authority with the message that you are not required to do even a single administrative and quasi-judicial decision, which should not have been based on reason or that be unreasonable. In case you have not done like-wise, you will be marked that you have acted unreasonably. It rather mentions when-ever you take administrative and quasi-judicial decisions, you should keep on mentioning those reasons in the record of the file concerned, because you have to assist in compliance of the provisions of RTI Act being the officer of the Public Authority. And when you keep on mentioning those reasons, you will already make those reasons available for public as per Section 4(1)(b) and sub-section 2, which is desired by the Act, then nothing will remain to be sought or left for being demanded by making specific RTI Application in this regard and no administrative and quasi-judicial decision shall take place in the functioning of the Public Authority without reasons. In case something has taken place because of an error or unknowingly, then at the time of uploading when you are re-examining or re-visiting the text, you will get an opportunity to remove the error taken place while updating it. Even then, if some-one seeks for the reasons of the decisions affecting him/her under RTI, you will be capable to make available the reasons of the decisions at the same time, not a single moment will be involved for waiting or go for waste. If you do not act as mentioned above, it appears that you are obstructing in compliance of the provisions of RTI Act, which you should not…
Just assume a situation, an officer of the public authority takes such decisions affecting some-one for some public authority, in which he/she has not mentioned any reason. As per inner desires of the Act, such situation may not occur at the Public Authority, but either knowingly or unknowingly such situation takes place at the public authority and as a result the record of the decisions has not been maintained with the reasons thereof. To face or tackle such situations, it is the cause why Information Commission has been equipped by the parliament u/s 19 (8) (a) with the power “to require the public authority to take any such steps as may be necessary to secure compliance with the provisions of this Act.” Meaning thereby Information Commission should do all such acts that ensure that all activities related to the various provisions of RTI at public authority are running smoothly, and in case any officer of any authority is not functioning with the tune of RTI Act, it should mark him/her, penalize him/her as per Section 20 (1), recommend him/her to be penalized u/s Section 20 (2) and issue direction for compensation for affected person. Incase Information Commissions start functioning like this, it will check all arbitrary activities in government offices and government offices shall start taking all decisions based on reasons and grounds, the crowd in the Courts shall reduce and the public at large shall start getting justice and the corruption to some extent shall be checked. Contrary to it, if Information Commission orders that incase reasons of the decisions are available on record, these may be made available to the information seeker, and no officer of any public authority shall desire or like to mention reasons of any decision. Such practice also signalizes that he/she has not paid any heed for providing the reasons knowingly so as to enable the public authority for making available to the information seeker i.e. an affected person, while these should have been recorded positively so as to meet out the lawful needs. If Information Commission orders like this that incase the reasons of the decisions may be available on record, these be made available to the information seeker. Such an act of Information Commission shall start allowing and encouraging the arbitrariness of the officer of the Public Authority in maintaining and managing its record, this was never desired or in the mind of Parliament of India while enacting RTI Act, that is why it was mentioned in the text of Section 4 (1)(d) of RTI Act with the word “shall” that leads towards mandatory provision, which is quoted here in verbatim “Every Public Authority shall provide reasons of its Administrative and Quasi-judicial decisions to affected persons”; but it was not mentioned in the text that every Public Authority shall provide reasons of its Administrative and Quasi-judicial decisions, if available on file or on record, to affected persons. In case the Parliament of India had enacted or passed such text with the phrase “if available on file or on record”, Information Commissions and Information Commissioners would have been only photocopy-providers of the government documents and their status would have been degraded, but it was not desired by the Parliament, therefore it is the need of the time that Information Commissions and Information Commissioners are passing orders with the phrase “if available on file or on record”, they should restrict themselves from doing so and they should start acting as per the desires of the RTI Act and as a guardian of information seeker.
Here this question should also be taken into consideration that incase the reasons of the decisions are not available on record or on file, whether those reasons were to be recorded by the affected person or by the concerned officer?....... And as per provisions of the Act, those reasons were/are essentially and mandatorily to be provided to the affected person, this makes it clear that the concerned officer of the public authority had/has knowingly not mentioned those reasons so that the affected persons may not get those reasons, and this is the reason why those reasons are not being made available to the affected information seeker for not being available on file/record; such situation clearly indicates that that officer of the public authority has knowingly obstructed in compliance of this provision of RTI Act, therefore he/she is to be penalized as per provisions of Section 20 of RTI Act and the affected information seeker is eligible for compensation u/s 19(8)(b) on the direction of Information Commissions and Information Commissioners and thus Information Commissions and Information Commissioners are not merely photocopy-providers of record and therefore they should also not act in such position, if they are acting likely…..
