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State Information Commission defunct for 14 months in Congress-ruled Jharkhand
Chandramohan Paswan, a resident of Hazaribag district in Jharkhand, was in Ranchi for some work this week
Chandramohan Paswan, a resident of Hazaribag district in Jharkhand, was in Ranchi for some work this week. He took out time to visit the Jharkhand State Information Commission office on Wednesday to enquire about the status of the appeal he filed seeking information related to the allotment of a gas agency in Bermo town in Bokaro district.
Much to Paswan’s surprise, he was told by clerical staff in the commission that the next date of hearing in his case was yet to be fixed as the state government is yet to appoint an information commissioner.
“It has been so long now that I don’t even remember the exact date I had sought information from the Bokaro SDM office. Probably it was in 2017. Then I had filed my second appeal here. Every time I come to Ranchi, I visit the office to check the status but the situation remains the same,” said Paswan.
As a result, Paswan is not the only applicant facing such hardships. Officials in the information commission said around 12,000 appeals are waiting for disposal. The state information commission is lying defunct since information commissioner Himanshu Shekhar Chaudhary retired after completing his term on May 8 2020. The state has a provision of six commissioners including a chief information commissioner. However, all six posts are lying vacant since May last year.
“There were around 8,000 appeals under process when the last commissioner retired. Since May last year, we have received around 4,000 new appeals. We make file entries for all the applications. Beyond that, only the commissioners take a call whether they reject or admit the appeal for further hearing,” said a staff at the commission, not willing to be named.
Not only the commissioners, but the post of secretary is also vacant now which has a direct bearing on over a dozen of contractual staff working at the commission which wears a deserted look as its core work has come to a standstill.
“Our salary has been withheld for the past two months as Abhishek Tiwary, who was the secretary, got transferred. He had the salary disbursal powers for the contractual staff. We are eagerly waiting for someone to be posted here,” said a home guard on duty at the commission.
The office has 10 home guards working on contract besides half a dozen staff in the project monitoring unit at the commission, staff members at the office said.
In January last year, the Personnel Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasa department of the Hemant Soren-led three-party coalition government, where the Congress is the second largest ally besides the RJD, invited applications for filling the post of commissioners. Officials said around 300 applications were received against the advertisement. However, there is no forward movement on the appointment issue since inviting applications.
Vandana Dadel, the incumbent secretary in the department refused to comment on the issue. “I won’t like to comment anything on the matter now,” she said when asked if anything has moved on that front.
The Congress party takes credit for bringing the Right to Information Act but its Jharkhand unit president and finance minister, Rameshwar Oraon, could not give a definitive date till when the appointments would be made.
“We had initiated the process but the mandatory clause of the Leader of Opposition being in the three-member selection committee delayed the process as the matter of the LoP is being heard in assembly Speaker’s court. We had taken legal opinion and it has been finalized that the senior-most member of the main opposition party could be taken on board. The process is on. We expect it to be done soon,” said Oraon.
BJP, the principal opposition, appointed Babulal Marandi as its legislature party leader after he merged his party JVM(P) into the BJP within months after the 2019 assembly elections. Two of his JVM(P) legislators joined the Congress. The assembly speaker has not granted LoP status to Marandi to date as the split and merger of the JVM(P) is now being heard in his court under the anti-defection law.
