Date: 04-11-2011 By
email
To,
Joint Secretary,
Dept of Administrative
Reforms and Public Grievances,
Ministry of Personnel,
Public Grievances and Pension,
Govt of India New Delhi
Dear Sirs,
Suggestions on CITIZENS RIGHT TO GRIEVANCE REDRESS BILL 2011
I thank Govt. of India
01. Section 9.1.a stipulates time for
redressal by Grievance Redress Officer [GRO] as 15 days while section 9.1.b
states it as one month. It needs to be reconciled.
02. In section 10 “under advice to
complainant” words should be added at the end of section, so that complainant
himself may not file appeal with HOD. This will save him money and time.
Complainant will be kept informed of status also.
03. Powers vested in Head of Department
[HOD] under section 11.3.I.[a] can be misused by HOD by summoning [and may be
repeatedly] the complainant also to his office, while complainant may or may
not desire or afford [money and time] to be personally present before HOD on
his complaint. HOD being part of same office or department, he will try to
favour GRO and other employees [as is happening in case of First Appeals under
RTI]. Complainant will be put to unnecessary expenses, time and inconvenience
etc in respecting summons of HOD. I suggest that section 11.3.I.[a] may be made
compulsorily applicable only to govt. officers or employees connected to
processing of complaint and issue raised therein. Personal attendance of
complainant before HOD should be made optional to complainant, as is the case in
appeals under RTI Act. There could be written or audio or video options to
complainant to present his say before HOD, if he so desires.
04. There appears to be confusion on jurisdiction
of State and Central Commissions. From draft of the act, it appears that second
appeals against all public authorities [of central and state Govts] can be
preferred to State Commission. Thus second appeal against say a branch of
public sector bank in Gujarat will be decided by Gujarat State Commission, even
when this bank is a central govt public authority. However appeal against
decision of State Commission will lie with Central Commission.
While in overview document
[institutional structure] of this act, it appears that second appeals of public
authorities of state govt will be heard by State Commission and second appeals
of all central govt public authorities irrespective of their location will be
decided by Central Commission.
This needs clarity.
05. Section 14.b provides for 5
commissioners in addition to Chief Commissioner of State Commission. I suggest
that this act should provide minimum number of commissioners [preferably 3]
also. In case of RTI many States [including Gujarat ] did not
provide adequate number of information commissioners which has paralyzed RTI in
these states with very high level of pendency. I also suggest that maximum
number should be 10 in state commission. Keeping in view attitude of govt
employees, work culture, infrastructure, etc there will be huge rush of
appeals. HOD will be redundant and ineffective [waste of time and money for
citizens] in practice as is the case with first appellate authorities under
RTI. HOD will never dare to go against his own office staff for various reasons
[including sharing corrupt income and also because other staff knows about
misdeeds of HOD in most of offices].
06. Similarly in case of Central
Commission number of commissioners should be minimum 10 and maximum 15, if it
has to attend second appeals of central public authority and third appeals of
state public authorities.
07. There is no time limit for disposal
of appeals by commissions u/s 25.1 and 42.1. It should be 30 days from date of
receipt by commission.
08. Penalty to be imposed has been left
to rules to be made by state and central govts. The amount has not been
quantified and hence some states may provide trivial penalties [say Re 1 per
week of delay] which will not be deterrent to employees. Hence minimum amount
of penalty should be quantified in this act itself. It could be even some percentage
of basic salary of erring employee. It should be deterrent enough for
employees.
09. There is no provision of
compensation to the complainant who has been wronged. He will have to move
consumer or other forum for this purpose. While employee will be penalized, the
harassed citizen will not be compensated for waste of money, time and hardship
sustained by him. There should be provision of compensation with minimum amount
per day of delay. RBI has in 2008 provided such compensation to customers in
case of failed ATM transactions [amount debited in account, but no cash
dispensed at ATM of bank] being Rs.100
per day beyond 7 working days of filing complaint till amount is refunded to
the customer by bank. Circulars are at www.rbi.gov.in.
10. Act is silent on how complaint is
to be filed. It should be provided on the lines of RTI Act [section 6]. No
format should be stipulated, only minimum requirements should be insisted. Format
could be recommendatory. Language of complaint should be English, Hindi and
official State language. Reply from GRO or HOD and Commissions should be in the
language of complaint.
11. In sections 27 & 40 word
“establish” should be replaced by ‘justify’.
12. Under section 46 [Reporting]
following details should also be incorporated:
Amount of penalty imposed, amount of
penalty recovered, number of employees on whom penalty is imposed and recovered
and amount of unrecovered penalty.
13. Under RTI there is no mechanism at
State or Central Information Commissions or public authorities to track if
penalties imposed on PIOs are actually recovered and credited to govt accounts.
Huge amount of penalty is unrecovered from PIOs. In this proposed act, a system
should be provided so that all penalties are recovered and credited to govt
account and HOD should be made accountable for its compliance and in case of
non-recovery from salary of erring employees, it should be recovered from
salary of HOD]. Data on monthly basis as stated in paragraph 12 supra should be
also made available to public.
14. Challenging orders of HOD, State or
Central Commissions in High Court or Supreme Court by employees against penalty
or disciplinary action under proposed act should not be at govt [public] cost.
The employee should bear cost himself personally. In RTI PIOs are challenging
decisions of information commissions at govt [public] cost, even when penalty
is imposed in their personal capacity. Thus public is harassed by public servants
at public cost with no accountability to public in a democratic setup. What a
poor state of governance!!!
15. Section 51.2 is incomplete. Rules
will have operational impact and hence these should have been mentioned before
inviting public suggestions.
16. It should be ensured that not
providing on demand citizen charter of his office free of cost to citizens by GRO
or IFC or HOD will also attract penalty provisions of this proposed act.
17. Selection of commissioners and
chief commissioners should be based on open advertisement, as recently followed
by Govt for Information Commissioners for CIC. Search committee should take
into consideration applications received in reply to advertisement or directly
from citizens, in addition to those whom the committee searches out.
18. There should be time limit of 3
days for complaints lodged at IFC, for onward submission to GRO, otherwise such
complaints will be kept pending for days at IFC before forwarding to GRO. Delay
at IFC should attract per day penalty to erring employee, like APIO under RTI
Act 2005.
19. Success and real benefit to common
men is totally dependent on contents of citizen charters adopted by public
authority. It is the heart of this citizen-centric mechanism. There are no
provisions in proposed act as to maximum time limits to be decided while
preparing citizen charter. Some Govt dept may for example provide 12 months
for ration card or passport or water connection or electric connection. Hence
it should be stipulated that citizen charter for each public authority should
be approved [including annual revision] by a committee consisting of three
officers who are third, fourth and fifth senior most in rank from top in public
authority or ministry or department of state govt at capital. For example in
case of bank, committee may consist of senior most general manager, Dy. General
Manager and Asstt. General Manager at Head Office.
20. A common citizen is not aware of
complexity of govt structure and hence it should be mandated that any govt.
office receiving complaint under this act should forward to appropriate GRO
within 3 days of its receipt under advice to complainant. Delay beyond 3 days
should attract penalty per day of delay against head of that office.
21. Like RTI Central / Nodal Point
concept [mandated by DoPT] should be replicated in this act itself. All offices
of District Collector/Magistrate should be central or nodal point for receiving
all complaints under the proposed act. Complaint should be forward to
appropriate GRO within 3 days of receipt under advice to complainant. In this
case also delay should attract penalty per day of delay.
22. It should be made mandatory to
mention official mobile number [if any], email ID, landline phone and fax
number [if any] and full address with PIN number [ it is must for speed post] of
each officer who signs letters under this act. All govt officers should have
email IDs [except at village level] connected to his designation and not in
personal name.
23. It should be provided in proposed
law that complainant can be represented at hearings at HOD, State or Central
Commissions by a duly authorized agent. This is necessary specially in case of
illiterate, semi-literate and others who do not know working of govt. offices
or who want to present their version without traveling to place of hearing by
authorizing some other person to represent him at hearings.
25. Token filing fee of Rs.5/- be
levied by way of court fee stamp or revenue stamp or postal stamp or
non-judicial stamp/franking for each complaint. Paying filing fee will make
complainant a consumer under Consumer Protection Act 1986, so that he can
approach consumer forum if this mechanism under proposed act does not work
properly. Now RTI applicants are moving consumer forums for solving their RTI
problems after NCDRC on 28-05-2009 in
Revision Petition Nr. 1975 of 2005 held that RTI applicant is a consumer under
CPA, since he has paid fee.
26. There should be penalty provisions
for HOD also [like GRO], otherwise like first appellate authorities under RTI,
it will not be answerable or accountable to any law, except service rules for
violation of act of Parliament. This never works in any govt establishment.
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