उत्तरप्रदेश राज्य सूचना आयोग में ८ सूचना आयुक्त की नियुक्ति की संशोधित विज्ञप्ति जारी-२४ सितम्बर २०१३

 साथियों ,
जैसा की सभी को पूर्व विदित है कि उत्तरप्रदेश राज्य सूचना आयोग में ८ सूचना आयुक्त की नियुक्ति प्रक्रिया 14 अगस्त को शुरू  हुई थी ( पत्रांक संख्या - उत्तर प्रदेश शासन , प्रशासनिक सुधार अनुभाग-२, संख्या -170/43-2-2013/15/2(3)2006/TC-V जिसमें शासन की तरफ से कुछ प्रशंसनीय संसोधन कर २४ सितम्बर २०१३ को फिर से संशोधित विज्ञप्ति जारी पत्रांक संख्या - उत्तर प्रदेश शासन , प्रशासनिक सुधार अनुभाग-२, संख्या -170/43-2-2013/15/2(3)2006/टीसी-6 जारी किया गया है.

अब इस संशोधित नियमवाली के अनुसार कोई भी सूचना आयुक्त पद धारण करने के पूर्व जो भी लाभ का पद / क़ारोबार कर रहे हैं उनको छोड़ना या बन्द करना होगा. निःसंदेह सरकार का यह कदम पारदर्शिता के मानकों के अनुरूप प्रतीत हो रहा है.

उत्तर प्रदेश में सूचना आयुक्तों के चयन के लिए बनी स्क्रीनिग कमेटी

उत्तर प्रदेश में रिक्त पदों पे गत 14 अगस्त को जारी सूचना के समय सीमा पूरा होने के साथ प्रमुख सचिव "प्रशासनिक सुधार " की अध्यक्षता  में सूचना आयुक्तों के चयन के लिए बनी स्क्रीनिग कमेटी.

आर.टी.आई. काउंसिल के कन्वेनर आलोक कुमार सिंह ने प्रशासनिक सुधार के प्रमुख सचिव से अनुरोध किया है की सूचना आयुक्तों के लिए प्राप्त आवेदनों में से सही पाए गए आवेदनों को प्रशासनिक सुधार की वेब साईट पे डाला जाय , जिससे आयुक्तों के चयन में पारदर्शिता बनी रहे.

“Eight years of RTI: A Retrospective”.

Shri Pranab Mukherjee, President of India will inaugurate the 8th Annual Convention of Central Information Commission at New Delhi tomorrow. This year the theme of the convention is “Eight years of RTI: A Retrospective”.

The two day convention has three technical sessions on RTI and inclusive growth, RTI-an anti-corruption tool and Media and RTI with eminent panellists like Prof. Abhijit sen, Member Planning Commission, Shri Harsh Mander, Shri J.M.Lyngdoh, Shri Subash C. Agrawal, Shri Siddharth Varadarajan, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, Dr. O.P. Kejariwal, Shri R.K.Keswani, Former Editor Dainik Bhasakar, Ms. Sonia Singh, Editorial Director, NDTV, Smt. Deepak Sandhu, Information Commissioner taking part in these sessions.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=99028

Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Shri V. Narayanasamy will also address the convention Shri Ramachandra Guha, noted historian and columnist will deliver the keynote address on Democracy in India: Mid-life Crisis. Shri Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister, Jammu & Kashmir will deliver the valedictory address on Sep. 03, 2013.

For the first time, the convention will discuss the causal relationship between the inclusive economic growth and RTI, if any. Various views regarding the assertion that an effective access to information regime can be a vital tool in promoting more participatory development will be discussed. The other panels will deliberate on how to make RTI more effective for the containment of corruption. Panelists will share their experiences on using RTI and curbing of corruption. The panel on media and RTI will discuss the role of media in the governance process by catalyzing effective implementation of the Act, providing information to the citizens and building awareness of the Act while giving a voice to the citizens and acting as a watchdog on behalf of the citizens.

अब उम्मीद है फ़ाइल गायब नहीं होंगी

अब उम्मीद है फ़ाइल गायब नहीं होंगी ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
आज जिस तरह संसद के दोनों सदनों में कोयला आवंटन पे रस्सा-कस्सी चल रही थी उम्मीद है इस वेब-पोर्टल के सुचारू रूप से कार्य करने के उपरान्त ऐसी घटनाएँ शयद नहीं होंगी.....


Shri V Narayanasamy, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office to launch the RTI online Web Portal for all central Ministries.


Date : August 21, 2013 (Wednesday)

Time : 1600 hrs.

Venue : Civil Services Officers’ Institute (CSOI), Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/mbinvitationdisp.aspx?relid=98392

उत्तरप्रदेश राज्य सूचना आयोग में ८ सूचना आयुक्त की नियुक्ति प्रक्रिया शुरू

 उत्तरप्रदेश राज्य सूचना आयोग में ८ सूचना आयुक्त की नियुक्ति प्रक्रिया शुरू ,
उत्तर प्रदेश में किस नियुक्ति के लिए आवेदन शुल्क २००० रुपये लिया गया है ?
यह सरकार का अधिकार है

At Last Democreacy Need to Review Again - Amendment to the Right to Information Act, 2005

Dear All,

The Union Cabinet has approved introduction of a Bill in the coming session of the Parliament to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005, to exclude the political parties from the definition of Public authority for the purpose of the Act.

उत्तर प्रदेश सूचना आयोग की पहल

साथियों ,
अब आपको सूचना के लिए सूचना आयोग जाने की कोई आवश्यकता नहीं रहेगी बल्कि आपको सूचना आपके घर के दरवाजे पर ही मिलेगी । यह एक प्रयास उपसचिव सूचना आयोग एवं मुख्या सूचना आयुक्त रणजीत सिंह पंकज "मूंछ " के द्वारा प्रायोगिक रूप से शुरू किया जा रहा है ,
मैं इस तरह के प्रयोग की प्रशंसा करता हूँ , हो सकता है कि मेरे अन्य साथियों को यह प्रयास बेकार प्रतीत हो.

" झिझक ये कैसी पूछता,आईना आधी रात , आँखे खुद ही बोलती,हर राज की बात "

सूचना आयुक्तों के चयन हेतु शासनादेश जारी :

केंद्रीय सूचना आयोग में खाली पड़े सूचना आयुक्तों के चयन हेतु शासनादेश जारी :
F. No.4/3/2013 — IR
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
(Department of Personnel and Training)
North Block, New Delhi
Dated: May 31 st , 2013
Subject: Appointment of Information Commissioners in the Central
Information Commission.
The Government of India has constituted a body under the Right to Information
Act, 2005 (the Act) known as the Central Information Commission to exercise the
powers conferred on and to perform the functions assigned to it under the Act. It is
located in New Delhi. The Commission shall have the Chief Information
Commissioner and upto ten Information Commissioners. The present composition of
the Central Information Commission can be seen at www.cic.crov.in . The powers and
functions of an Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission are
as per chapter V of the Act.
2. It is proposed to appoint more Information Commissioners in the Commission.
The Act provides that the Information Commissioners 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.
3. Further, the Information Commissioner shall not be a Member of Parliament or
Member of the Legislature of any State or Union Territory, as the case may be, or hold
any other office of profit or connected with any political party or carrying on any
business or pursuing any profession. It is clarified that cessation/termination of holding
of office of profit, pursuing any profession or carrying any business is a condition
precedent to the appointment of a person as Information Commissioner.
4. An Information Commissioner shall hold office for a term of five years from the
date on which he enters upon his office or till he attains the age of 65 years, whichever
is earlier. The salary and allowances payable to an Information Commissioner shall be
the same as that of an Election Commissioner, subject to adjustment of the
pensionary/retirement benefits availed by him, if any, in accordance with the
provisions of the Act.
5. Persons fulfilling the criteria for appointment as Information Commissioner and
interested for appointment to the post may send their particulars in the enclosed
proforma by post to Under Secretary (RTI), Department of Personnel and Training,
North Block, New Delhi or through e-mail to usrti-dopt@nic.in by June 28th , 2013.
Persons who are serving under the State/Central Government or any other
Organization, may send their particulars through proper channel.
6. It may be noted that these appointments would be subject to the outcome of
Review Petition (C) no. 2309 of 2012 pending before the Hon'ble Supreme Court.
(Sandeep Jain)
Deputy Secretary
Tel: 23092755







http://ccis.nic.in/WriteReadData/CircularPortal/D2/D02rti/4_3_2013-IR.pdf










 

Selection of Information Commissioners

Dear All,
The following way for selection of Information Commissioners which is given by:Shailesh Gandhi is a former Central Information Commissioner, I Think the proposed way is enough to make this tool powerful,

A. The Information Commissions should set a target for disposals: I suggest 5000 per Commissioner per year. An attempt should be made to increase this target number (around 85% of the matters do not require any legal interpretations as per a study of four months of CIC decisions).

B. Every six months they should review their actual performance per Commissioner and forecast the expected receipts and disposals for the next two years, factoring the retirements. This information should be displayed on their websites. This forecast would show the requirements for new commissioners to be appointed by taking into account the expected retirements.  

C. The government should advertise its intention to appoint a certain number of Information Commissioners depending on the need, four months in advance. Eminent people could apply or be nominated by others.  

 D.  A search committee—perhaps—consisting of two members of Parliament, Chief Information Commissioner, one vice-chancellor, one Supreme Court judge and two RTI activists, could be formed to shortlist a panel which could be three times the number of Commissioners to be selected. These could be announced with the minutes of the meeting at which the shortlisting was done.      
                             
E.  An interview should be held by the search committee in public view to give citizens and media the opportunity to hear the views and commitment to work of the candidates. Citizens could give their feedback and views to the search committee. After this the search committee could give its recommendation for two times the number of Commissioners to be appointed. Based on these inputs, the final decision to select the Commissioners could be taken by the committee as per the Act consisting of PM, LOP and one minister. (A similar process could be adopted for State Commissions with MLAs instead of MPs and high court judge instead of Supreme Court judge).

Citizens will benefit if they could get the Commissions to publish data on the performance of each Commissioner monthly, and also build public opinion to lower the average age of the Commissioners. Atleast half the Information Commissioners should be less than sixty years. There are many RTI activists who have gained considerable understanding of the nuances of the law, and have a natural empathy for transparency. Some of these should be appointed as Information Commissioners. Another useful function which civil society groups could perform is to analyze all the decisions of each Information Commissioner each month continuously in a transparent manner. This would build pressure on those who may be giving errant decisions.

Presently, individual decisions are randomly criticized and this does not give a picture of the overall trend of a Commissioner’s decisions. If we can get a transparent process for selecting Commissioners and put continuous pressure on them for accountability, we will get much better results from our cherished Right to Information. If this works well, it could be used as a model for selecting commissioners for various commissions. The commissions are designed as our checks and balances of democracy. Presently, most of them are not delivering their expected functions effectively.
http://www.moneylife.in/article/transparent-process-will-help-in-selection-of-information-commissioners/32282.html

Implementation of suo motu disclosure under Section 4 of RTI Act, 2005

Implementation of suo motu disclosure under Section 4 of RTI Act, 2005 – Issue of guidelines regarding:
Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act lays down the information which should be disclosed by Public Authorities on a suo motu or proactive basis. Section 4(2) and Section 4(3) prescribe the method of dissemination of this information. The purpose of suo motu disclosures under Section 4 is to place large amount of information in public domain on a proactive basis to make the functioning of the Public Authorities more transparent and also to reduce the need for filing individual RTI applications.


http://ccis.nic.in/WriteReadData/CircularPortal/D2/D02rti/Suo_moto_disclosure-15042013.pdf


http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=94720

Guidelines for Central Government Ministries/Departments are on:
i. Suo motu disclosure of more items under Section 4.
ii. Guidelines for digital publication of proactive disclosure under Section 4.
iii. Detailing of Section 4(1)(b)(iii), 4(1)(b)(iv), 4(1)(b)(xi) and 4(1)(b)(xiv)
iv. Compliance mechanism for suo motu disclosure (proactive disclosure) under the RTI Act, 2005.

Central Government Ministries/ Departments should undertake suo motu disclosure and ensure compliance based on these guidelines.

The enclosed guidelines may be brought to the notice of all for compliance.

Alok Kumar Singh

Convener RTI Council of U.P.
मोबइल : +91-९९३६७१६५२६

"Monitor the implementation of a law is to Get Real democracy"

Dear All,

We Have Proposed & submitted One innovative strategy to monitor the implementation of a law is to conduct information commission court monitoring to UPSIC Chief on 29th Jan-2013.

kindly find attached link of proposal, and reply with how we can get more involvement of Common Citizen,
https://docs.google.com/file/d/1pt7UsrbRiF_YmUtkE9_sFheQzFsxZjuy5COW8Eh8FmMqhXIk0qErRybInKho/edit?usp=sharing

When a magistrate almost took RTI route to get answers

When a magistrate almost took RTI route to get answers

How many FIRs were lodged in the last one year under the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act? In how many FIRs were the accused politicians? And how many of them were arrested for blemishing public structures by putting up posters, banners and hoardings during election campaigning?
Do these sound like queries from an application filed under the Right To Information (RTI) Act? Well, almost.
Baffled over lack of clarity on the circumstances under which police arrest such accused and even file chargesheets without arresting them, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kiran Bansal wondered if she, being a citizen of India, should file a RTI application to get such information from the police.
When a police officer failed to her of any clear policy in this regard, she wondered if this “discretion” was being used in “special cases” where people, accused of defacing properties, were leaders of political parties.
The officer had filed a chargesheet in a case naming, among others, Congress leader Geeta Sharma and her husband Manoj Sharma as accused under the Defacement of Property Act over posters pasted ahead of the MCD elections.
As per the FIR lodged at the Madhu Vihar police station, two posters were found pasted on water tanks near Ganesh Apartments in I P Extension on
April 6, eight days before the MCD elections. Geeta Sharma went on to win and is councillor from IP Extension.
“In the present court, charge sheet pertaining to the above Act of the entire East District are being filed and this court has come across many instances wherein sometimes the charge sheet is filed after the arrest of the accused and sometimes without arrest of the accused. It is also felt that in most of the cases where the charge sheet is filed without arrest of the accused, the accused persons are influential persons and posters and banners are of political parties,” ACMM Bansal said.
She went on to compile a list of seven questions for the area DCP. These queries included those on number of defacement cases between April 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012, instances where politicians were involved, and on the decision to file charge sheets without arresting them.
ACMM Bansal said because she was a judicial officer, she could get all the information without resorting to the RTI Act.
“The undersigned felt that being a citizen of India and also an ACMM, it was the onerous duty of the court to take up the matter on the official side...”She had a copy of the order sent to the DCP, East for collection of data regarding her queries, its compilation and submission in court by the last week of June.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/when-a-magistrate-almost-took-rti-route-to-get-answers/956350/2

'No plans to evaluate RTI Act

In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V Narayanasamy said that a study was conducted in 2008-09 to assess the key issues and constraints in implementation of the RTI Act. Based on the report, the minister said, "The Government has taken initiatives to build the capacity of the demand and supply side through trainings, an on-line certificate course, and publication of guides on the Right to Information Act". Narayanasamy said awareness generation has been undertaken through print, electronic and outdoor media.

राज्य के मुख्य सूचना आयुक्त- रणजीत सिंह पंकज ने आदेश दिया- और अब खुद ही फँस गए.........

आर.टी.आई. एक्टिविस्ट-सलीम बेग ने राज्य सूचना आयोग से अपने सूचना के अधिकार का प्रयोग करते हुए
२२ फरबरी - २०१० को सूचना मांगी थी कि-
१-कुल कितने जन सूचना अधिकारियों के ऊपर सूचना न देने पर कितना दण्ड लगाया गया
२-राज्य सूचना आयोग ने जिन जन सूचना अधिकारियों के ऊपर सूचना न देने के कारण दण्ड लगाया है उसकी निगरानी करने वाली समिति कि मासिक/त्रिमासिक बैठक कितनी बार हुई
इस पर प्राशासनिक सुधार विभाग की ओर से सूचना दी गई-
सूचना आयोग के गठन के बाद अब तक १ करोड़ , १८ लाख , ९३ हज़ार ५० रुपये जुर्माना लगया गया ,जिसमे से ६२ हज़ार ५०० रुपये की वसूली हुई.
इस सम्बन्ध में राज्य के मुख्य सूचना आयुक्त- रणजीत सिंह पंकज ने आदेश दिया-
और अब खुद ही फँस गए.........

Government, judiciary not interested in RTI disclosures

NEW DELHI: At a time when the Congress-led UPA government has been battling with Team Anna over a comprehensive anti-corruption legislation, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has taken on the government and the judiciary over the transparency issue saying not even a single public authority has been following disclosure norms.
Even six years after the implementation of the Right to Information Act 2005, the final appellate authority for the legislation feels that the government has not voluntarily disclosed information on its ministry and department websites, as required under Section 4 (1) (b) of RTI Act.
Central Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said, "The biggest issue on RTI Act implementation is whether the government departments have implemented Section 4 (1) (b) and voluntarily disclosed information on their websites. We have got a study done and when I say that none of the websites of Government of India follow the disclosure law, it is not an exaggeration. Even the high courts are no better."
Each government department is required to disclose information, including number of employees, their education, salary drawn, the tenure of employment, records held by the department, records destroyed, areas of responsibility and similar information.
Mishra said, "When we see websites of the government, we find half-hearted attempt to disclose information. If you randomly go to websites, you will find names of people who have retired and in some cases have even died. There is no updated information. We have sent repeated letters to the government on how they can improve the information delivery mechanism, which would ultimately mean less number of RTI applications. After all RTI applications cost money not only to the applicant but also to the government."
CIC's suggestion that each ministry should publish a "negative list", which would include information that the ministry would not provide, has also not been followed. "Our national goal should be that no citizen is required to use RTI Act. But our suggestions have not been followed," Mishra said.
CIC had suggested in 2010 that each government department appoint a transparency officer to oversee the implementation of RTI Act. So far, of the 2,200 public authorities registered with CIC, only 324 (about 15%) have followed this.
It is not just the government but also the judiciary that does not seem to be following the rule book. CIC has found that only Guwahati High Court has a website that gives "exemplary information". CIC has directed all the high courts to get their act together by April 1.
Hearing an appeal filed by Hyderabad-based RTI activist C J Karira, CIC has ordered that high courts should voluntarily disclose information as the law provides. Mishra said, "There are other issues like harsh RTI rules also. Allahabad high court has levied a fee of Rs 500 per application and per item, which means that if you ask more than one question they will charge Rs 1,000. We have directed them to at least follow what Supreme Court is doing - levying a standard fee of Rs 10."