the goan I network
PANAJI
The State Information Commission is statutorily mandated with the task of adjudicating on matters where transparency laws which help citizens secure up-to-date information are violated by bureaucrats.
But ironically, the Commission itself is not up-to-date with information on itself and its website carries information of up to a decade ago and more.
The most recent information available on the official website of the Goa State Information Commission http://www.gsic.goa.gov.in/ dates back to the year 2007 and is obsolete, raising questions over the efficiency of those responsible to update it. It contains minutes of only one meeting of the Commission held way back in 2007. The site also has only three annual reports of the Commission uploaded -- 2006-07, 2007-2008 and 2014.
Although personal information of the current Chief Information Commissioner, Prashant Tendulkar and that of the two SICs - Pratima Vernekar and Juino D’Souza - is available, the information of the Commission under section 4 (1) b (i) of the RTI Act also retains information of the previous information commissioner i.e. Motilal Keny
and Afonso Araujo.
Interestingly, the website also declares the Commission’s address to be at Shramshakti Bhavan although it has shifted to another spacious premises on the seventh floor of Kamat Towers at the EDC’s Patto Plaza way back in 2015 during the tenure of the Laxmikant Parsekar government.
Also, the website’s dynamic ‘notice board’ which is supposed to give out information of sittings of the full commission as well as hearings before the individual Commissioners, is also non-operational.
The State Information Commission is a statutory, quasi-judicial body constituted under the Right to Information Act, 2005.
In Goa, the SIC was first constituted way back in 2006.
The SIC is mandated to hear appeals filed by people who’s bid to secure information under the RTI Act, 2005 is rejected by bureaucrats and officials designated as ‘Public Information Officers’ and appellate authorities in various government departments, state-owned corporations, public sector companies and any organisation funded by the government, either State or Central.
