CIC asks others to declare assets, but won’t do itself

When information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi voluntarily declared his assets (Rs 5.38 crore) last November, it was to set an example for his colleagues in the Central Information Commission. Chetan Chauhan examines...Information dead end

Published on: Jan 31, 2009, 01:28:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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When information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi voluntarily declared his assets (Rs 5.38 crore) last November, it was to set an example for his colleagues in the Central Information Commission (CIC). “I have requested the Central Information Commissioner (Wajahat Habibullah) to post the list of assets of all the commissioners on the website of the CIC,” Gandhi, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, who sold a thriving plastics business to pursue his goal of ensuring transparency in public life, had told

Hindustan Times

soon after that.

But the people mandated to ensure transparency in public life took refuge behind the oldest bureaucratic trick in the book to perpetuate the opacity surrounding themselves. Information dead end

“We will have to take into account the procedures for submission of such declarations in other commissions before taking a final decision,” Wajahat Habibullah, Chief Information Commissioner, told HT.

Presumably, the CIC, which routinely orders politicians and government departments to part with information to the public, is still poring over the procedures – no other member of the 8-member CIC has declared his assets.

But pressure is mounting, not only on the information commissioners but also on others holding high constitutional office – like judges and election commissioners – to declare their assets. There are reports that some Supreme Court and High Court judges want to end the controversy over the judiciary’s reluctance to declare assets by doing so.

But the official position is that judges do not come under the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and the CIC’s order directing judges to declare their assets has been stayed on appeal by the Delhi High Court.

The Election Commission, too, was quick to deny details of the assets of its three commissioners. The reason: the information, apparently, is not available with it.

Ironically, politicians, much vilified for alleged corruption, have to, and do, declare their assets – once at the time of filing nomination papers when they contest elections, and then again, annually to the presiding officers of their respective legislatures.

Here, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee set an example by making public the declarations that were filed by members to him.

In a telling comment, in the context of the judiciary’s unwillingness to declare assets, he recently said: “There is no law that says you have to be honest. Honesty is not imposed by law. Dishonesty is treated as a crime.”

But the two commissions and the judiciary continue to evade public scrutiny. Magsasay award winner and RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal feels “the time has come to scrap the rules that allow retired bureaucrats to evade scrutiny”.

Gandhi has set an example. Now, it is for other high constitutional functionaries to follow his example.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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