Friday, September 18, 2009

Some quick updates

I was trying to get some information from the SIC regarding their staffing problems. I had asked for the number of vacancies there, and the communication between them and the Government regarding staff requirement. The information I received showed that there are 4 sanctioned posts in the Information Commission which have not been filled by the government. Also repeated letters from the Information Commission have also not helped the cause. I gave this information to Shyam of the Hindu, and he has put out a report which can be seen here.

A few important hearings are coming on 24th September 2009. They include
1. Hearing regarding assets statements disclosure of IAS officers
2. Hearing regarding information from DVAC (which was exempted from the RTI act). Here is a related post.
3. Hearing regarding an RTI application where I had asked for appointment procedure of Information Commissioners, which was not replied to at all by the P&AR department.

Sometime back, I had filed an RTI application with the Chief Minister's Office, which in turn was replied to by the PIO of the Public Department (that too a rejection). Wondering if there was no PIO in the CMO, I filed an RTI asking the name and designation of the PIO and the Appellate Authority for which, I got a reply that there was no PIO or an Appellate Authority. So I filed a complaint with the State Information Commission. This was in October 2008. Now the Commission has directed the Government to appoint a PIO to the CMO. This was covered by the Times of India and the Hindu. In the Hindu, it appeared only in the online edition. The links are
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/09/18/stories/2009091852930400.htm
http://tinyurl.com/lwdrg2

In the original RTI application to the CMO, I had asked for inspection of certain registers, including the incoming mail register, but it was rejected saying that I had not asked for any specific registers and so the inspection cannot be allowed under section 7(9). Against this I appealed to the Commission and a hearing is scheduled for September 30th.

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