A new Chief Information Commissioner for Tamil Nadu
Along with the report of Mr. K.S.Sripathy being sworn in as the Chief Information Commissioner of Tamil Nadu, the media also reported the arrest of three persons. RTI activists V.Madhav, Siva Elango and Gopalakrishnan were picked up from outside the Raj Bhawan, detained through the day in two different police stations, and released before dust. As it is the arrest was without charges and the law does provide for such actions by the police.
There are two aspects that are of concern in this. First that the issue that led the three men to protest has been discussed and talked about in the public domain for some weeks now and yet we found only three men to even protest. Let me recall the subject matter in brief.
The post of the Chief Information Commissioner fell vacant on Monday, August 30, 2010 and hence it was imperative for a new person to be appointed to that post. The RTI Act, 2005, lays down that the post shall be filled up by a committee consisting of the Chief Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and a minister chosen by the Chief Minister himself. In this case, the committee then meant Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi, Leader of the Opposition, J.Jayalalitha and Finance Minister K.Anbalaghan. The fact is that the Act, for all its radical protestations, lays down that the CIC shall be a person whom the ruling establishment of the day wants. Be that as it may.
The Act also provides for the appointment of a retired bureaucrat as much as it provides for the appointment of a journalist or a public personality of repute. In other words, Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi could have chosen anyone as long as the chosen one did not hold any office of profit. It could have been a scholar or a writer or anyone for that matter. But then, it was widely held that Sripathi, serving as Chief Secretary until August 31, 2010, was going to be the chosen one.
A meeting of the committee was scheduled on August 23, 2010 for this purpose. But one of the three, for obvious reasons, decided to skip the meeting and held that she was not provided with the panel from which the CIC was to be chosen. She could have attended the meeting and recorded her opposition to Sripathy’s name and even then the outcome would have been the same. The Act, after all, does not warrant a consensus in the committee. But then, Jayalalitha opted to tread her own path and just as it has happened in the past, she invented some reasons to not attend the meeting. And this she did, notwithstanding the fact that the activists (including those who protested on September 1, 2010) conveyed to her their apprehensions.
Well. If the first one to throw a stone in this context was Karunanidhi, when he decided to have Sripathi as the chosen one, Jayalalitha did not lag behind by way of staying away from the meeting on August 23, 2010. And Finance Minister Anbalaghan too behaved in a manner that he is used to for over the years. The list of the guilty does not end here. And I will argue that the various other political parties and such organisations that claim to be committed to democracy are a lot more guilty than anyone else.
As for instance, the Left parties, the PMK, the DMDK and such others as well as the PUCL and such platforms could have mobilised their cadre and their followers to demonstrate in protest against the manner in which Sripathi was appointed. Instead, it was left to three young men to do that. While I salute the three men who did what they could do, it is a sad commentary on the state of our democracy that none in the political establishment thought it necessary to protest. Not even the Congress party whose president, Sonia Gandhi, had spearheaded the process to enact the RTI Act, 2005.
As for the second cause for concern, I have the following argument. It is true that Sripathi, as in-charge of the DVAC and subsequently as Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, had acted against the spirit and the ideals behind the RTI Act. He had worked hard and with a lot of zeal to ensure that the act was defeated. But then, I do hope that he displays the same zeal, in his new incarnation as CIC, to defeat the designs of those who seek to frustrate the RTI and its spirit.
My hopes are based on the experience of T.N.Seshan. Despite a lot of other things and many undemocratic acts, Seshan as Election Commissioner did something that brought small little changes in the election system. Something that lent some hopes that the democratic edifice was not going to crumble. And particularly so when the party system is already collapsing and the media getting caught, increasingly, in the culture of ridicule than any campaign or debate.
Along with the report of Mr. K.S.Sripathy being sworn in as the Chief Information Commissioner of Tamil Nadu, the media also reported the arrest of three persons. RTI activists V.Madhav, Siva Elango and Gopalakrishnan were picked up from outside the Raj Bhawan, detained through the day in two different police stations, and released before dust. As it is the arrest was without charges and the law does provide for such actions by the police.
There are two aspects that are of concern in this. First that the issue that led the three men to protest has been discussed and talked about in the public domain for some weeks now and yet we found only three men to even protest. Let me recall the subject matter in brief.
The post of the Chief Information Commissioner fell vacant on Monday, August 30, 2010 and hence it was imperative for a new person to be appointed to that post. The RTI Act, 2005, lays down that the post shall be filled up by a committee consisting of the Chief Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and a minister chosen by the Chief Minister himself. In this case, the committee then meant Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi, Leader of the Opposition, J.Jayalalitha and Finance Minister K.Anbalaghan. The fact is that the Act, for all its radical protestations, lays down that the CIC shall be a person whom the ruling establishment of the day wants. Be that as it may.
The Act also provides for the appointment of a retired bureaucrat as much as it provides for the appointment of a journalist or a public personality of repute. In other words, Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi could have chosen anyone as long as the chosen one did not hold any office of profit. It could have been a scholar or a writer or anyone for that matter. But then, it was widely held that Sripathi, serving as Chief Secretary until August 31, 2010, was going to be the chosen one.
A meeting of the committee was scheduled on August 23, 2010 for this purpose. But one of the three, for obvious reasons, decided to skip the meeting and held that she was not provided with the panel from which the CIC was to be chosen. She could have attended the meeting and recorded her opposition to Sripathy’s name and even then the outcome would have been the same. The Act, after all, does not warrant a consensus in the committee. But then, Jayalalitha opted to tread her own path and just as it has happened in the past, she invented some reasons to not attend the meeting. And this she did, notwithstanding the fact that the activists (including those who protested on September 1, 2010) conveyed to her their apprehensions.
Well. If the first one to throw a stone in this context was Karunanidhi, when he decided to have Sripathi as the chosen one, Jayalalitha did not lag behind by way of staying away from the meeting on August 23, 2010. And Finance Minister Anbalaghan too behaved in a manner that he is used to for over the years. The list of the guilty does not end here. And I will argue that the various other political parties and such organisations that claim to be committed to democracy are a lot more guilty than anyone else.
As for instance, the Left parties, the PMK, the DMDK and such others as well as the PUCL and such platforms could have mobilised their cadre and their followers to demonstrate in protest against the manner in which Sripathi was appointed. Instead, it was left to three young men to do that. While I salute the three men who did what they could do, it is a sad commentary on the state of our democracy that none in the political establishment thought it necessary to protest. Not even the Congress party whose president, Sonia Gandhi, had spearheaded the process to enact the RTI Act, 2005.
As for the second cause for concern, I have the following argument. It is true that Sripathi, as in-charge of the DVAC and subsequently as Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, had acted against the spirit and the ideals behind the RTI Act. He had worked hard and with a lot of zeal to ensure that the act was defeated. But then, I do hope that he displays the same zeal, in his new incarnation as CIC, to defeat the designs of those who seek to frustrate the RTI and its spirit.
My hopes are based on the experience of T.N.Seshan. Despite a lot of other things and many undemocratic acts, Seshan as Election Commissioner did something that brought small little changes in the election system. Something that lent some hopes that the democratic edifice was not going to crumble. And particularly so when the party system is already collapsing and the media getting caught, increasingly, in the culture of ridicule than any campaign or debate.
posted by Krishna Ananth at
8:32 AM
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