The Hindu : New Delhi News : CSIR told to provide information on promotion to scientist

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 03, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

CSIR told to provide information on promotion to scientist

Nirnimesh Kumar

Council accused of contempt for law, disregard for decorum worthy of public body

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to provide information within a fortnight to one of its scientists about the marks awarded to him for promotion, the threshold marks fixed for promotion and to allow him to inspect records related to his assessment.

The Commission, comprising Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and Information Officer P. Balasubramaniam, pulled up CSIR for the perfunctory manner in which the scientist's case was disposed of, including citing of an appeal from the appellant (scientist) by the Appellate Authority when no such appeal had been filed by him.

"It shows a contempt for the law and disregard for the decorum worthy of a public authority, particularly of the standing of CSIR,'' the Commission observed.

In his appeal against the decision by Public Information Officer (PIO) D.S. Bedi, the scientist, Anand Akhila, who lives in Lucknow, had in November 2005 sought inspection of records related to his assessment for promotion. In his decision, the PIO said the request could not be allowed as it was exempted under Section 8(1) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Possibly realising that such a response was in violation of Section 7 (8) of the Act, Mr. Bedi also advised the scientist that he could appeal against his refusal to provide information sought by him, the CIC order said.

However, even without an appeal having been filed, the Appellate Authority, V.K. Gupta, Director in the Information Technology Division of CSIR, refused to provide information to Dr. Akhila, attaching to his order a press release purportedly issued by the Prime Minister's Office, the CIC order said.

Although informed of the date of the hearing, no representative of CSIR was present nor did the public authority send any comments in response to the CIC's orders asking for its response, the final order said.

The appellant scientist had sought information about marks awarded to him by each member of the promotion committee, without disclosing their names; the threshold marks fixed for promotion; permission to inspect the records related to his assessment and imposition of penalty for mala fide denial of information to him.

Castigating Mr. Bedi, the CIC order said: "He seems to have had no reasonable ground for delay in sending the brief and slipshod response to the application of the appellant.''

The Commission asked Mr. Bedi to show cause within 10 working days why he should not pay the prescribed penalty for delaying his response and not providing the information, which has thus far not been received by the appellant, from November 26, 2005, when it became due.

As for Mr. Gupta, the Commission stated: "He had clearly failed in this case to uphold the law or act in public interest.''

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