Access to information under the Right to Information Act 2005(RTI) is one of the most powerful tools that has been provided to the citizens of the country. Right to Information ensures openness in administration by enabling the public to demand information about issues as varied as deteriorating civic amenities, utilization of public funds, quality and standard of goods and services and basic human rights. The Right to Information promotes transparency, empowers the citizens, reduces corruption; increase efficiency; makes officials accountable, and puts an end to their indifferences, arrogance and corruption. Unless the citizens are informed of their rights in the form of information, probably they cannot assert their rights and make the government accountable for its actions. In view of a decade of RTI in Nagaland, Nagaland state was not lacking behind with the rest of the states in the country as Nagaland Information Commission was constituted on 14th March 2006. In the assessment of the impact of RTI in Nagaland for the last ten(10) years done by the Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation(NVCO) under the co-ordinatorship of its President Kezhokhoto Savi, there are several success stories and the misuse of RTI as well. There are good number of number of success stories to the extent that had there RTI Act not been implemented in the state a good number of young bright intelligent man and woman may become depressed in life and may allowed to exploit their precious talents. There are instances of misusing the RTI Act by the applicants and public authorities as well such as negotiation with money is one way of withdrawing the RTI application, some applicants were filing RTI just to extract money from public authorities, public authority attempted to bribe the applicants, use of RTI to harass the public authorities or certain department, offered huge sum of hard cash to applicant, public authority manipulate public documents while furnishing to the applicant. However, we are to appreciate the government departments for maintenance of records or official documents much better with the implementation of the RTI Act in the state. But when it come to the level of corrupt practices especially in public sectors we did not see any improvement rather it is becoming worsen especially the amount of money spent during the last State General Election. We don’t see much of improvement in public infrastructural developmental works such as roads, etc. and had detected so much of illegality in spending public funds in not following the norms and procedures including illegal deduction of certain percentages in the name of party funds, commission, etc. Several organisations contributes a role in promoting the RTI Act in the state by way of filing RTI applications, fighting against the illegality and shortcoming of procedure based on information/documents obtained through RTI and had even filed a case of Public Interest Litigation(PIL) before the Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench. There are cases where individual and organisation were filing RTI application just for the sake of filing as they do not read and sudy the information obtained through the powerful Act. The awareness level in the district headquarters is still low, but is even lower in villages. Awareness is still lacking and it is more important in rural areas where every citizen must have the basic knowledge of the RTI Act and RTI is require in rural areas where more disclosure is require in various schemes/projects meant for villagers especially those below poverty line(PBL). To promote transparency and accountability in villages it is necessary to file RTI application in questioning the maximum misused of funds in MNREGA, Public Distribution System(PDS), etc. There was a case that a village authority had fined their citizens for filing RTI application without consulting village authorities and this had happened due to lack of awareness amongst the citizens. Trainings were conducted more for the APIOs, PIOs & FAAs but least bother to create awareness for the general public. But still then the public authorities have negative attitude towards the RTI applicant/activists and many of them take advantage of the one month period although the information can be furnish within a few days time. The maximum RTI applications filed in various departments were related to recruitment of jobs in public sector(backdoor appointment, contract works, and so on. Since we are living in an information based society, access to information has become inevitable, to the individuals and also the institutions. A person well informed stands in a better position to exercise his legal rights better than those who do not have access to any information or ill-informed. RTI is a powerful tool, which gives the citizens the chance to transform the way the government and its officials function and this powerful tool is in the hands of the citizens that one should not sit and watch but get involved and use one’s right to information.
In view of the ten(10) years of RTI implementation in the state of Nagaland, Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation(NVCO) had done a study on the use of RTI across the state and its impact and listed out few key findings and recommendations as follows :
Improving awareness: There is poor awareness about the RTI, worse in villages than district headquarters. Few citizens from villages said that they had heard about RTI Act but no one has taught them how to go about it and no participation had heard of the RTI Act in many villages.
1. There continues to be an urgent need for a concerted and professional approach to increasing awareness among the public. In addition, information regarding the RTI Act and its relevance to the people should be imparted along with information about other basic rights, highlighting how the RTI Act can be used to ensure access to those other rights. This would not only contextualize information about the RTI Act but also raise awareness about other rights.
2. Dedicated programming on RTI awareness could be broadcast on local TV channels and radio, and also disseminated through social media and through whatever other means are available.
3. A module on RTI should be made mandatory in school curriculum.
4. Perhaps self-help groups(SHGs) could be mandated to spread awareness about the RTI Act and facilitate the filing of applications and appeals. Information about RTI should also be displayed outside schools, colleges, bus stop, community halls, etc.
5. In many villages, school teachers are an important source of information and support to village communities. It might, therefore, be useful to train them in the use of the RTI Act.
The village-district headquarter (urban) divide : Very few applicants were from villages, even though over 75% of Nagaland population lives in villages. Awareness levels about the RTI also seen very low in villages.
1. An assessment needs to be carried out to determine the reasons why there is such poor participation by village populations in the RTI process especially applicants.
2. Very little effort, in general, seems to have been made by the state government to raise awareness about the RTI. Whereas in district headquarters there are many other methods by which the public can learn about the RTI and its uses and process, special attention needs to be paid to villages.
Grievances redress mechanism: The applicants especially from village said that they wanted to use the RTI Act in order to seek redress of their grievances. Analysis of RTI applicants showed that good percentage of the applicants were seeking information that was aimed at getting action on a complaint, getting a response from a public authority, or getting redress for a grievance.
Threats to applicants: Applicants are often intimated, threatened and even physically attacked when they file an RTI applications, or as a consequence of their submitting such application.
1. Complaints of such intimation, threat or attack, in so far as it is an effort to deter the applicant from filing or pursuing an RTI application, can clearly be considered as obstruction and falls within the gamut of section 20(1) as penalisable offence. Therefore, where the enquiry establishes the guilt of a person who is a PIO, the Information Commission must impose a penalty which is both appropriate to the case and acts as deterrent to other PIOs. If required, the Information Commission should make a report to the police for criminal proceedings.
2. Where the guilty party is not a PIO, the Information Commission must establish a tradition to the enquiry report to the police, where a cognizable offence is made, or otherwise to the relevant court, and use its good offices(and its moral authority) to ensure that timely and appropriate action is taken.
Reducing the need to file RTI applications: There are certain public authorities/departments such as Home/police, health & Family Welfare, School Education, PWD, RD, Social Welfare, Food & Civil Supplies, Agriculture, etc. receive a disproportionate share of RTI applications compared to other public authorities. In some cases there is resentment among PIOs as they have to deal with a large number of RTI applications in addition to their normal work.
1. First, each public authority should assess every three months what types of information are being sought by the public. As far as possible, the types of information that are most often sought should then be proactively made available, thereby making it unnecessary for the citizen to file and pursue an RTI application.
2. Second, most often RTI applications are filed because there are unattended grievances that the public has with the public authority. These are mostly about delays, lack of response to missive and queries, not making the basis of decisions public, seemingly arbitrary or discriminatory decisions, norms, rules or laws that are not easily accessible to the public, and non-disclosure of routine information that should have been disclosed even without the RTI.
Proactive disclosures: Nearly 75% of the RTI applications seek information that should have been proactively made public without citizens having to file an RTI application. Despite a very strong provision(suo motu) disclosure under section 4 of the RTI Act, there is poor compliance by public authorities. This forces applicants to file applications for information that should be available to them proactively, and consequently creates extra work for themselves, for the concerned public authorities, and for information commission. Many departments do not have a board with the required proactive disclosures.
1. Given the very poor implementation of section 4 by most public authorities, the state nodal agencies should direct all Public Authorities to designate one or more PIOs as responsible for ensuring compliance with all the provisions of section 4.
2. In Mizoram, public authorities do not charge for any application seeking information that should have been proactively provided or disclosed. This encourage public authority to ensure that all that was legally required to be proactively displayed or communicated, was being disclosed. Even our state government should make such rule.
3. Information that is proactively disclosed must be properly and organized in such a manner that it facilitates easy retrieval. Information
on the website must be organized in a searchable and retrievable database to enable people to access this information can actually contribute to opaqueness rather than transparency.
Record management: One major constraint faced by PIOs in providing information in a timely manner is the poor state of record management in most public authorities.
Section 4(1) (a) of the RTI Act obligates every public authority to properly manage and speedily computerize its records.
Training of PIOs: Many PIOs have not received any training on the RTI Act. In fact, the PIOs interviewed identified lack of training as their number on constraint. A much larger proportionate of non-PIOs civil servants, who have to provide information to the PIOs or function as first appellate authorities, have not been oriented and trained towards facilitating the right to information.
State government and the Information Commission should direct all Public Authorities and training institutions, that apart from conducting separate training courses for PIOs/FAA and other officers, a module on RTI should be incorporated into all training programmes, considering all government employees are subject to the RTI and most of them are potential PIOs or first appellate authorities.
Delays and pendency: Unlike Nagaland Information Commission, there are huge and growing delays in the disposal of cases in many of the information commissions, with pendency of cases growing every month.
1. Newly appointed information commissioners must be provided an opportunity to orient themselves to the law and case law. Incumbent commissioners should have an opportunity to refresh their knowledge and understanding and to discuss their experiences and thinking with commissioners from other commissions, and with experts outside the information commissions.
2. There also needs to be standardized format for Information Commission orders that ensures that at least the basic information about the case and the rationale for the decision is available in the order. Each order needs to be speaking order and contain at least the date of the applications; description of the information asked for; date of response, if any; nature of response; reasons given for refusal, if relevant; legal basis and rational for the order of the commission; whether the actions of the PIO attract a penalty under any of the grounds laid down in section 20 of the RTI Act.
3. Whenever a commissioner is due to demit office in regular course of time(by way of retirement), the government must ensure that the process of appointment of new commissioners is done well in advance so that there is no gap between previous commissioner demitting office and a new one joining in.
Composition of commission: The composition of information commissions across the country has a bias towards retired government servants. It is desirable to have a more balanced composition so that diverse expertise is represented in the commission.
Towards this end, the process of short-listing candidates for appointment to information commissions must be participatory and transparent, allowing public consultation and debate before a short-list is finally sent to the selection committee. The criteria used for short listing and for selection must be made public.
