RTI helps man become civil judge

Dhirendra Kumar, who is now a civil judge in Dumroan in Bihar, failed to clear the Bihar Judicial Service Examination in 2007, or at least his results showed so. But it was his confidence of having done well in the exam and the power of the RTI Act that helped him undo the injustice meted out to him. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 15, 2009, 24:38:35 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Right to Information (RTI) Act can get you a job. Sounds unbelievable? Ask 30-year-old Dhirendra Kumar.

Kumar, who is now a civil judge in Dumroan in Bihar, failed to clear the Bihar Judicial Service Examination in 2007, or at least his results showed so.

But it was his confidence of having done well in the exam and the power of the RTI Act that helped him undo the injustice meted out to him. For this, he is a nominee for the National RTI Award in the Best Citizen Category.

Kumar received a jolt when he couldn’t find his name in the list of candidates selected for the interview, he then filed an RTI application to request his score in all the subjects covered in the exam.

“There were approximately 800 people on the interview list and I was not one of them,” Dhirendra recalled.

Two months later, the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) told Kumar that his marks could not be revealed till the interview process was completed.

His RTI application, however, forced the BPSC to post the marks of all candidates, who had appeared for the interview, on the commission’s website.

Kumar had received 451, which was much higher than those called for the interview.

“I returned to the BPSC office to inquire. The BPSC responded by asking me to file another RTI application, specifically requesting why I was not called from an interview,” he said.

Kumar then filed his second RTI application with three BPSC officials — the public information officer (PIO), deputy secretary and the chairman.

He, however, did not receive a reply.

When he again went to the BPSC office, the PIO told him that the cut-off for the post he had applied for was much higher than what he had scored.

But Kumar obtained a copy of his BPSC application, using RTI, and proved that his exam score made him eligible for the interview.

The PIO then contacted Kumar and gave him the first written reply to his RTI application, which said that he would be called for an interview.

He cleared the interview and is a civil judge today.

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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