Whispers Forum

The appellant sought for the copy of the entire file relating to a particular matter including the note sheets. The respondent submitted that the information has been provided to the appellant after severing the identity of the officer. After hearing the matter, the CIC held that there are no grounds to interfere with the order of the FAA.
Comments
The Delhi High Court in the case of UPSC v. Shatmanyu Sharma in W.P. (C) 4079 of 2013 vide decision dated 10.10.2013 had observed that the apprehension of the petitioner that if the identity of the author of the file notings is revealed by his name, designation or in any other manner, there is a possibility of such employee being targeted, harassed and even intimidated by the persons against whom an adverse noting is recorded by him on the file of UPSC, is fully justified.
Citation: Ms. Mita Pattnaik v. National Hydroelectric Power Corporation in Decision No. CIC/YA/A/2016/001701 Dated 06.07.2017
Dr. Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is the co-author of the books: RIGHT TO INFORMATION – LAW AND PRACTICand PIO’s guide to RTI. Her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation of India at - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/

The decision by four sitting SC judges to hold the Press Conference amounts to
a No-confidence motion against the present CJI ? It has jolted the conscience of the Nation. The protesting judges left it to the" Nation "to preserve” independence of Supreme court “.
Who will take the call ? The Executive, the Parliament or the ubiquitous Media, the fourth pillar of democracy ? As Presidential appointees, the dissenting judges did not think of sharing their simmering discontentment with the President of India before going public.
The consequences of the ill-advised move by four judges on the integrity and credibility of Supreme Court and their negative impact on various High courts and the Subordinate judiciary, must not be ignored.
Following options are available.
( a) Leave the Supreme court alone. Let the four SC judges and the CJI resolve their differences mutually through discussions among themselves;
or
(b) PM Modi as head of government cannot and should not remain a mute spectator. He, along with the Attorney General of India, may discreetly intervene to serve as a catalyst or facilitator to resolve the dispute in the top judiciary. This should be discreet, not be seen as interference in the internal functioning of the Supreme court by any political party. The CJI, in his wisdom, has already refused to meet PM’s Principal Secretary, at former’s residence
or
(c ) Senior lawyers like Fali Nariman, Soli Sorabhji, Harish Salve and the Attorney General of India may be urged to intervene.
or
( d) Guidelines may be drawn by the CJI in consultation with top five or six judges for allocation of cases to different benches of SC. The CJI as the Numero uno, the first among Equals, is expected to carry the court with him. All efforts need to be made to diffuse the crisis at the earliest before the situation spins out of control.
The Congis and the Commies must keep their hands off. Let them not try to earn brownie points by politicizing the issues.
My gut feeling is that even after the matter is resolved “amicably”, the damage done to Indian Judiciary is irretrievable. The damage done to the Supreme court’s credibility, impartiality will be irreparable. The top court will never be same again in the eyes of the Litigants and the Bar.
A K Saxena (A retd civil servant)
Why people without God fathers not reaching top management positions ?
Why honest , sincere, qualified persons who do not have God fathers are not reaching top management positions in CPSE ? These people are retiring at AGM or DGM level. Many have opted voluntary retirement . The reason is they cannot work under corrupt.
A Visitor

I am in Pondicherry now called Puducherry. The first thing one notices on coming to a place away from Delhi or its neighbouring area is clean and breathable air, the blue sky where you can see stars at night. What an escape from the gas chamber Delhi has become. This welcome interlude for four weeks makes you so much at peace with yourself before you are back to a routine not so alluring .Pondy is one of the few places in India one falls in love with. With its 1.5 km beautiful Gobert Avenue ,the wide Promenade or the Beach road along the seashore is the heart of the city with Aurobindo Ashram its soul with Samadhis of the great man and the Mother its soul. What strikes one as you walk along the Promenade is the efforts put in by the employees, mostly ladies in pink coats, of Puduchrry Municipality (now called Swatchha Corporation)to keep it neat and clean. Mind you it is a Herculean task with the Pondicherrians as well as tourists littering it so badly. The crowds throng the seashore (the road is closed to traffic from 6p.m to 7.30 a.m next morning to facilitate people walking and just enjoying themselves. Eatables are bought from a few shops on the avenue or from vendors outside the entry and exit point. They eat and throw their ice-cream cups, polythene bags, water bottles and whatever they can on the road making the whole place so dirty. This is when plenty of dust bins are around. The crowd clears off by midnight and these municipal workers clean up the whole area at night and make it once again a presentable attractive place for the morning walkers. Hats off to these ladies of cleanliness. it is a pity however that they are not provided with gloves and plastic garbage lifters .They do it with their bare hands. In our drive for Swatchh Bharat it is essential to in-build some penal provisions for those throwing litter here and there as also spitting on the roads which again people here are quite in the habit of. With all this aberrations Pondicherry is a place one likes to visit again and again of course in winter. When Delhi is hell, as now, this place is heaven.
Aarti Khosla

Those of my age would recall the Bitcoin currency of the political class of decades from the 1950s through the 1970s: conservative, reactionary, obscurantist! These were the high value political Bitcoins in those days with each one having a value in excess of a few billions. It was the rhetoric of the “progressive forces’ of those days. They attacked everybody not standing with them or their “revolutionary ideas” as reactionary and obscurantists. They blamed the people having faith in “values” as conservative. They claimed themselves to be revolutionaries, determined to bring a great revolution in India, like Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. They created an illusion of the revolution coming any day in India. They portrayed themselves even superior to the socialist and secular forces, who began to rule India even before India became an independent state. We occasionally witness their power to create confusion in universities like the JNU of Delhi and the OU of Hyderabad, where they have tried unsuccessfully to steal the populism of the rival camp of “social justice” forces. They have succeeded many a times in forging short term alliances of what they call secular forces to fight the reactionary ones. In case of need, they have embraced even the reactionary and obscurantist forces. But they keep putting on the mask of “progressive”. They had destroyed democracy by repeatedly claiming it to be of no use in comparison to violence they stoke in the name of revolution and revolutionary ideas. The economy has suffered because they successfully brought down all economic activity in the country in the name of revolution, social justice, progressive thoughts. They talk human rights only when they get benefit of votes by skillfully hyping the insignificant or underplaying the significant. For them it is progressive for a married woman to be divorced instantly by her husband, who throws her out of the house at midnight along with her small children. They refuse to say what that woman should do. They refuse to help her. They do not empathise with the suffering woman or her little children nor do they agitate or fight for their rights. They have exhibited the highest level of insensitivity refuse to the pain of these human beings- a minority in a male bastion, many of them even Dalit. They are neither for the poor, nor women, nor Dalits and still they call themselves “progressive”. They refuse to protest the conservative and obscurantist elders of the society to get immediate relief and redressal to the helpless women. When the political class which they had all along strived hard to paint as conservative, reactionary and obscurantist lends an ear to the misery and trauma of such a victim of instant divorce and pass a law in compliance of the judgment of the Supreme Court of India holding instant divorce unconstitutional, these holders of the sole and absolute copyright over progressivism stoutly oppose it. Forgetting all connotations of conservative, reactionary and obscurantist, they stand firmly in the company of conservatives and reactionary forces which refuse to treat the sufferers equal to men or human beings. All their notions of socialism, social justice, progressivism disappear in no time and simply evaporate like camphor on your palm. Strangely, a large number of highly educated women, speaking fluent English and active in politics, are the loudest to challenge the progressive legislation initiated by the government and attacking it as if the sufferings of millions of these women in the last 70 years has not quenched their thirst for blood of the hapless women and their children. The silence of these wolves of politics on the ugliest aspect of the tragedy of the victims in supporting the practice of Halala will shame any modern woman anywhere in the world. But the politicians of India are made of sterner stuff!
M L Gupta
Good choice
T S Tirumurti’s appointment as Secretary, Economic Relations in MEA is really a good choice.
Kishore Dudani

Agriculture should have been on the top of the priority list.
Parth
Sack Nepal Singh from BJP
BJP should sack Nepal Singh from the party for his recent comments on soldiers. The thoughtless comment made by the BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh, that it was normal for soldiers to die in combat, deserves nothing less than that, his apologies notwithstanding. Being an elected representative, he is expected to be responsible in his public utterances. Far from encouraging our jawans and officers who guard our borders round the clock, such remarks will only hurt their morale and demotivate them. The Prime Minister too needs to reiterate his caution to his partymen to exercise restraint as such nuances do not suit the party which claims to be ‘nationalist’.

An application was filed seeking copies of educational qualification certificates, caste certificate submitted by Shri Awadhesh Kumar at the time of appointment in the school. The CIC observed that the PIO had provided copies of caste certificate & educational qualification pertaining to third party to the appellant. The copies of certificates of educational qualification or caste is third party information and should not be provided before resorting to Section 11 of the RTI Act. The CIC directed the PIO to be cautious in future in dealing with the RTI matters and advised to strictly adhere to the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.
Comments
With a large number of Public Information Officers of state and centre being untrained, the likelihood of disclosing personal information inadvertently is fairly high. There is little which a person can do in such cases except to claim damages.
Citation: Shri Shiv Govind v. Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Case No. CIC/RM/A/2014/003876/MP, Date of Decision: 19th July, 2017
Dr. Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is the co-author of the books: RIGHT TO INFORMATION – LAW AND PRACTICE and PIO’s guide to RTI. Her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation of India at - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/

With India’s economic growth faltering in the last couple of years, the government has been looking for ways to galvanise the economy. It first tried demonetisation. It was a bold move but its economic benefits will be long in coming while the short-term disruption has been very real and demoralising. Then, it pushed through the goods and services tax (GST). Again, this is hugely positive over the medium term, but is painful in the short run. The government also seems to have realised that a simpler, more effective remedy at hand is recapitalising public sector banks (PSBs) and enhancing the flow of credit to cheer that markets.
Atul Saxena

Dalit-Maratha conflict in Maharashtra triggered by Prakash Ambedkar, allegedly claimed by a section? Were the riots incited by the so-called resurgence of "Brahmanism" , allege others ?
The celebration has been taking place peacefully, year-after-year without rancour from any quarter. How did it flare up suddenly this year ? A deep - state conspiracy by the Congis and the Commies, discomfited by their defeats in assembly polls. At least, so it seems ?
"Bahut chubhti hai teri chuppi ae, Congis aur Commies,
Kahin Ghul ghapara bhi ho jaye, par tujhe kuch fark nahi "
Whatever may be the findings of investigation , the politicos are laughing up their sleeves showing sham empathy with the dalits
A K Saxena (A retd civil servant)

If the current PM was in tune with the public grievance redressal system, then he would have not put plugs in the implementation of Public Grievance redressal act and creation of public grievance redressal commission mooted by the erstwhile. The current government is also not allowing the Lokpal Act and Whistleblowers Act to see the light of the day.
BBS
Non-IAS officers happy
The non-IAS officers are happy with the Modi government. IAS officers in general are not happy with the decision of PM Modi to allow other services to man some senior Central Staffing posts which the IAS lobby unduly denied them for years. Important senior IAS officers are trying to maintain the status quo which PM Modi is disrupting.
Vijay Kumar