CIC and his inbox of RTI requests

Mails,urgent notices,RTI requests and e-cards,which range from the bizarre to the real,array themselves cheek-by-jowl on whabibullah@nic.in.

A forward of an essay titled ‘How Can I Handle India Alone’ and a request to ‘borrow $25’ introduce the month of February to Habibullah. A crisp 457-word narrative autobiography of one Shankar Singh’s struggle from being a ‘tout to an activist’ awaits the Commissioner’s attention from exactly 5.29 pm on February 2.

“The lighter side apart,my inbox is also proof of how accessible and user-friendly the public finds the RTI,” says Habibullah as he scans the inbox during his lunch-break at his Lodhi Estate residence on a regular Tuesday afternoon.

Habibullah says he received a flood of mails from applicants after his assurance that the Commission would respond within 48 hours on any request in which the life and liberty of a person is at stake.

One of them is the case of a deputy chief engineer with Damodar Valley Corporation Ashok Jain from Jharkhand who claims he has been receiving “life-threatening” calls from a BSNL subscriber in Kolkata because of his RTI campaign to “expose corruption within the higher ranks”.

“I acutely apprehend that the threat to life could be carried out or executed at any time. All my efforts with police authorities,BSNL and Govt. of West Bengal/Jharkhand have failed to yield results as the identity of the BSNL Kolkata mobile subscriber has still not been disclosed,” he pleads in the mail sent on Saturday.

“It is only with your (Habibullah’s) kind intervention that I will be able to get the details of the concerned cell phone number and thereby take action for our safety and security,” he adds.

“One of the first mails I received under the 48-hour emergency section in the RTI was from a distraught father in Kolkata who was running helter-skelter trying to get information on how to register his daughter’s marriage so that she changes her marital status in her bank records,” says Habibullah.

“I have a problem in registering the marriage of my daughter. The Ambarnath Municipality (because we reside there) has refused saying that Christians and Muslims have to approach Sachivalaya and Aurangabad,respectively. I am told that the marriage certificate issued by my church is proof enough and there is no need to register separately. But my daughter’s bank insist that they need a registered certificate of marriage before they can alter the marital status in the records,please advice me,” reads the mail by Joy Verghese.

“I have forwarded the mail to the CIC counsel K K Nigam with an explicit request to advice the father,” says Habibullah.

There is also a January update from Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi of the 670 appeals and complaints received and disposed off till January 31.

Regular mails from Subhash Chandra Agarwal — the RTI applicant who turned the heat on the Supreme Court to disclose its judges’ assets — attempt to draw Habibullah’s attention as to why the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has still not updates its website to include disclosure of ‘file notings’ under the RTI.

A few hours after Agarwal,Pune-based Archana Sharma on January 28 at 9.39 pm recounts her efforts to nab the man who hoodwinked her of Rs 10 lakh and got away. “I have located his PAN card details. Please let me know as to who can help me. I have read about you in The Indian Express (Jan 25 edition ‘Please email whabibullah@nic.in’) and am approaching you for help,” Sharma requests.

The latest is a mail from Anand Housing Society in Baroda titled in block letters as “Noise Pollution in Our Area”. It reads: “Dear sir,Namaskar! Kindly let us know where we should lodge our complaint for continuous noise (music and singing) pollution in our area day and night. We are looking forward to hear from you soon. Thanking you. Residents.”