1) The petitioner requests the removal of the Information Commissioners of the Kerala State Information Commission under Section 17(3)(d) of the RTI Act for incompetence and indifference in discharging their duties. 2) The Commission has been flouting provisions of the RTI Act by not imposing penalties for failure to provide information on time and showing undue delay in disposing appeals and complaints. 3) There is a lack of transparency in the functioning of the Commission with no systematic method for handling cases and closed door hearings being conducted.

1. Maj (Retd) P M Ravindran 2/18, 'Aathira'
Tele: 0491-2576042 Kalpathy-678003
E-mail: pmravindra@sancharnet.in
pmravindran@rediffmail.com
File: RTI/comp-ker gov-ksic-071107 07 Nov 2007
The Hon’ble Governor of Kerala
Raj Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram
PETITION TO REMOVE THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONERS OF
KERALA STATE INFORMATION COMMISSION (KSIC)
UNDER SEC 17(3)(d) OF THE RTI ACT
1. Please refer the following documents, photostat copies attached for ready reference:
1.1. KSIC letter No 6009/SIC-Gen2/2007 dated 5/10/07 directing, in violation of Sec
5(2) of the RTI Act and Kerala Govt order No GO(P) 367/05/GAD
dated 10/10/05, the PIO, RDO, Palakkad not to accept petitions under the RTI
Act in future.
1.2. RDO, Palakkad letter No G4100/2007 dated 31/10/07 returning, in
compliance of the illegal directions of the KSIC, my letter No RTI-
KSCDRC-a 384-2000-hearing-271007 dated 27 Oct 2007 addressed to the KSIC.
1.3. My complaint to the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Kerala, reference Comp/cmk-ksic-
070507 dated 07 May 2007, less copies of the documents referred to in Para 1 of
the complaint. (This is to keep the volume of the complaint less. However, the
essence of the contents of those documents is given as part of this petition itself.)
1.4. My second complaint to the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Kerala, reference
RTI/comp-cmk-ksic-performance-170907 dated 17 Sep 2007.
1.5. Suggestions given to the Chief Information Commissioner, KSIC on 26 Jan 2007
during his visit to Ottappaalam to address a meet of Rotarians there. Sad to say,
none of the suggestions have been implemented except that the website of the
Central Information Commission does have a link to the website of KSIC.
2. The RTI Act is one of the best legislations in post-independence India because of its
simplicity and comprehensiveness. The information that need not be disclosed are
unambiguously spelt out, the authorities who are responsibilities for providing the
information and the time frame within which it is to be provided are also clearly spelt out.
The penalty for failure to provide the information within the specified time is also
unambiguously laid down. Time had been given for the public authorities to prepare for
responding positively to applications, even before the Act came into force for the general
public. The Information Commissioners have been vested with the authority to impose the
penalty prescribed under the Act. Suffice to say, this 30-sections Act, contained in less than
22 printed pages, leave no room for any whims and fancies of anybody concerned with
utilization or implementation of the Act. However, preposterously, the Information
Commissioners of the KSIC, have been brazenly flouting the provisions of the Act and
indulging in whims and fancies at considerable cost to the exchequer and frustrations of the
information-seeker.

2. 3. Thanks to the simplicity and comprehensiveness of the RTI Act, the job of the
Information Commissioners is quite simple. In every complaint/appeal they just need to
investigate the following:
3.1. Does the information sought fall into any of the exempted categories?
3.2. If not, is there any valid reason for denying the information. Here, it needs to be
mentioned that the validity has to be checked against rules and facts and not
whimsically. That is to say, valid reasons can only be non-availability of
information due to destruction of documents as per existing rules and regulations
or due to other reasons, like due to an outbreak of fire, which should have been
regularised and documented.
3.3. If the information sought was available and not provided in time then the
Information Commissioners are bound to impose penalty as specified in the Act.
Sec 20 of the Act says: ‘….it (the Commission) shall impose a penalty…’. Failure
to impose the penalty is a willful breach of the provisions of the Act and has to be
dealt with seriously. It needs to be highlighted that the Act provides for exemplary
penalties to ensure that the objectives of the Act are met. The Act does not provide
for Commissioners to give grace periods for providing the information sought or
discretion to waive penalties. By not imposing penalties the Commissioners are not
only guilty of subverting the Act but also depriving the Govt of due income that
could help sustain the infrastructure required to enforce the Act.
4. Some of the major crimes of the Commission are explained in the following paragraphs.
5. Firstly, as has been brought out in para 1.1 above, the illegal letter from KSIC proves
the infirmity of mind of the Commissioners, warranting action under Sec 17(3)(d) of
the RTI Act. Also, the KSIC, as a public authority under the Act, is yet to comply with the
provisions of Sec 4 of the Act. A cursory look at their website, http://infokerala.org.in,
will prove the extent of dereliction of duty of the Commission. Even the information
about the Information Commissioners are not found complete there, leave alone the other
specific information listed at Sec 4(b) of the Act. This is in spite of the fact that their site is
maintained by KELTRON, one of the pioneers in Kerala in the IT sector.
6. Secondly, there is undue delay in disposing of complaints/appeals. Some of my
own appeals that are pending with the Commission are:
6.1. No RTI-kscdrc-a384-2000-2nd
appeal dated 16 Apr 2007 (The Commission was
scheduled to hold a hearing on 6/11/07!)
6.2. No RTIA/CIC-review1-bio-waste-mpuzha-180507 dated 18 May 2007
6.3. No RTIA/hc ker-2nd
appeal-250507 dated 25 May 2007
6.4. No RTIA/pmc-water-2nd
appeal-290507 dated 29 May 2007
6.5. No RTIA/kscdrc-rp71-2003-2nd
appeal-290507 dated 29 May 2007
6.6. No RTIA/cic-pkd sit-2nd
appeal-290507 dated 29 May 2007
6.7. No RTIA/2nd
appeal-kspcb-tvm-310507 dated 31 May 2007. (The Commission
has asked for the report from the Appellate Authority only on 4/10/2007!)
6.8. No RTIA/gad tvm-dcs sps-2nd
appeal-110607 dated 11 Jun 2007
6.9. No RTIA/CIC-review-stadium bypass rd-110907 dated 11 Sep 2007
6.10. No RTIA/ksic-penalty-2nd
appeal-110907 dated 11 Sep 2007
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3. 7. There appears to be no systematic method of handling/processing complaints/
appeals. As can be seen from the data given in para 6 above, while hearing on the appeal
submitted on 16 Apr 2007 (ref para 6.1 above) was scheduled for 06 Nov 2007 and report
from the Appellate Authority has been sought on 4/10/2007 on an appeal submitted on 31
May 2007 (ref para 6.7 above) nothing is known about the rest of the appeals! In this
context your attention is invited to suggestions given at Ser No 1 and 7.6 of document
referred to in Para 1.5 above. Further the data provided by the Commission and produced as
annexure to the complaint referred to at para 1.4 above, also indicate the lackadaisical
method of functioning of the Commission. With just single digit-just 6, 4 and 2- cases
disposed off in the months of Mar, Apr and May 2007 respectively, the Commission should
be eligible for any award, if there is one instituted for incompetence and indifference!
8. The orders issued by the Commission are not based on facts/evidence. For
example, the document referred to at para 6.2 above is an application for review of an absurd
order issued by the Commission on 10 May 2007. The gist of the case is given below.
On 06 May 2006 I had sent an application to the Executive Engineer, Pollution Control
Board, Palakkad, for information regarding the bio-medical waste disposal facility at
Malampuzha. On not receiving any response, I made personal enquiry at their office on
26 Jun 2006 and was told that they had sent a letter on 17/5/2006 intimating their
inability to accept court fee stamp towards application fees. Though they claimed that
they had sent their letter by courier they could not produce any proof of delivery. In any
case since court fee stamp was an authorized means of tendering the application fee and
the Executive Engineer was still not prepared to accept it, I submitted a complaint to
the CIC through the APIO, O/o the RDO, Palakkad on 27 Jul 2006. It had been
forwarded to the Commission on 28/7/2006 under their letter No D3081/06. There was
no response to it from the KSIC and even my repeated queries through e-mail did not
elicit any response. Finally on 19 Feb 2007, when the Commission held its first sitting
at Palakkad and I confronted them during their press conference, I was told that they
had not received the complaint at all! A copy of the complaint was immediately given
to them and on 10 May 2007 the Commission issued an order noting that there was no
malafide on the part of the respondent in not accepting court fee stamp as fee and also
that the information requested had been since furnished and the matter disposed off
without any further action. While the RTI Act does not give any discretion to the
Information Commissioner to sit in judgment over the intentions of the Public
Information Officer (PIO)/Appellate Authority(AA) in not providing information, the
observation that the information sought had been provided was patently
false. This matter has been brought out in the application for review submitted on 18
May 2007 but there has been no response to it so far!
9. There is no transparency in the conduct of proceedings of the Commission. In
this context there are two issues.
9.1. As is evident from the data given in para 6 above, the Commission does not seem
to be dealing with cases on a first come first serve basis. The RTI Act provides for
priority only under proviso to Sec 7(1) of the Act and that too for providing information
sought. Hence the random manner in which the Commission takes up cases is a matter
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4. of serious concern as that would easily lead to corruption. The random nature in which
the Commission picks up cases for disposal is also evident from the cases taken up at
Palakkad during the Commission’s sitting on 19 Feb 2007. The five cases taken up then
had been filed on 14/8/2006, 26/8/2006, 10/10/06, 16/10/06 and 16/10/06, while
according to the AA of the Commission itself, there were 8 cases from Palakkad filed
prior to 14/8/2006 that were pending with the Commission but were not taken up on that
day! And none of the cases taken up were within the purview of the proviso to Sec 7(1)!
9.2. The other issue of transparency is that while even the judiciary conducts its
proceedings in open courts, the Commission has been found holding closed door
hearings, as it happened at Palakkad on 19 Feb 2007.
10. The next crime of the Commission is that while being incompetent, indifferent and
whimsical in discharging its duties as brought out in earlier paras, it has been
causing undue drain on the exchequer while rushing to different district
headquarters for holding sittings and disposing off only the barest minimum number of
cases for record-sake. On 19 Feb 2007, only 5 cases were considered by the 4-member
Commission during its sitting in Palakkad when, even by the Commission’s own figures,
there were 21 complaints and 8 appeals pending from Palakkad! These 5 cases were
disposed off in less than 2 hours! Similarly, on 28 Oct 2007, the Commission held a sitting
at Malappuram when, as I understand from RTI activists there, only 6 cases were heard!
11. The Commission is also guilty of evading provision of simple information like
the cost incurred by the Commission/exchequer for holding the Commission’s sitting
outside Thiruvananthapuram.
12. Lastly, the Commission is also arbitrary is awarding penalties. In response to an
application for information on the norms laid/followed by the Commission in awarding
penalties the Commission has admitted that it has no norms. However, of the 649 case
disposed off by the Commission till May 2007, the Commission had awarded penalties
only in 26 cases. And there too, one Mrs Indira Priyadarshini had been penalised on two
occasions- on 23/3/2007 and 28/5/2007! It may be worthwhile to investigate if Mrs Indira
Priyadarshini had malafide intentions in denying the information sought on both the
occasions. The arbitrary manner in which the Commission has been functioning even leads
one to fear that the day may not be far off when the Commissioners could be caught in a
sting operation for accepting bribes from PIOs for not penalizing them! That indeed would
be a sad day for this country.
13. For reasons given above, it is requested that the present Commissioners of the KSIC be
removed under the provision of Sec 17(3)(d) of the RTI Act. It is suggested that RTI activists
be appointed to these positions if the RTI Act is to be implemented in letter and spirit. In any
case, retired bureaucrats who would have put their life on the line to see that such an Act as
this did not get through should definitely not be appointed, as in the case of Bar Council
regulations preventing the kith and kin of judges from appearing in their courts, though in the
case of bureaucrats the definition of kith and kin has to be enlarged to include all serving and
retired bureaucrats!
Yours truly,
(P M Ravindran)
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