Empowering teacher, the RTI way

Two officers from Education Department of Delhi and a young person in Advocate’s suit, representing management of a school were sitting before me for a hearing in second appeal over denial of information to a teacher. A lady teacher alone was on the other side.

Perhaps it is the story of every private school in India making huge profits and not paying teachers their full salary. Single handedly the lady teacher is fighting the mighty management of school. The might of school comes from enormous richness derived from monthly cut from teacher’s salary besides big fees collected from students, and of course complacence or connivance of department of education. Her new found weapon is RTI. As the name means, Asha Rani possessed great optimism and is hopeful despite being frustrated at prolonged litigation before court and RTI dispute before the Commission against the school.

Asha Rani sought copies of staff statements for 1994 to 2012 with the details of the payment of arrears as per 6th Pay Commission recommendations, etc. She got those papers from 2001 but not those prior to 2001. The school was managed by husband and wife (Manager and Principal) represented by their lawyer son. She accused that they credit full salary in bank accounts of the teachers but only after collecting advance blank signed cheques, by which part of their salary was transferred to a fictitious trust. She could muster the strength of all the school teachers (around 30) to sign the petition for full salary, but with pressure building up from the school, only 18 teachers are supporting now, she explained. School charged Asha Rani of forcing some teachers to sign the petitions against management because she was denied the post of vice-principal.

The trial of cheating case no.355 against school is pending before Rohini court. A teacher will not get an appointment letter but her resignation is collected in advance. After her agitation full salary as recommended by sixth pay commission is credited but a signed blank check is ready to remove a fixed percentage of the salary. Prior to this, teachers were not paid full salary from the years 1994 to 2010. Generally the school management has to submit the ‘staff statements’ every year to the Department of Education with the details of the names of teachers and payments made to them. The teacher through RTI application sought such staff statements to be given. The management comes up with a plea that during 2000 there were some repairs going on in school building and the construction workers destroyed some staff statements and thus they are not in a position to furnish the same. The RTI application was filed with Department of Education which is the public authority supposed to have those statements. The officers -PIO and others -pleaded strangely the same thing, ie the documents pertaining to 1994 to 2001 years were not available with them too. Teacher Asha Rani says both the management and department are hand in glove. She asked how only the staff statements of particular years get destroyed selectively while bank cheque books, accounts, other annual reports etc are safe even during the repairs. There is no answer.

School management unleashed harassment to counter her fighting. She was teaching Hindi and Sanskrit. As her designation was Sanskrit teacher, Hindi was taken out from her teaching schedule. Thereafter, Sanskrit as a subject was totally removed from the teaching topics in school. Perhaps they are building up a case that there is no work load and do not need a teacher. She is sitting in school without teaching. Though there was demand from students to have Sanskrit subject, the management deliberately removed it. Not allowing teacher to teach is the biggest harassment, Asha Rani claimed. Asha Rani went on fast for 5 days in 2010 over these issues which made big news, then school started paying them full salaries.

The school gave the documents from 2001 to 2012 and claimed that teacher could collect them from Education department. When asked about their policy of record keeping officers said no such policy has been framed. The PIO submitted to the commission about their difficulties and the task involved in keeping safe the records of over 300 schools in Delhi, when no infrastructure and assistance is available in their office.

Asha Rani says the staff statements will help her in proving the cheating of school by establishing the real payments made during those years, service conditions of teachers etc and that is why forwarding excuse of accidental destruction of those documents. While they allege that those papers were lost during repairs in 2000, the claim comes up only in 2010 after the demand for copies. Uniform plea of school and department of education officials that records of 1994 – 2001 alone were missing raises doubts about of their claim, Asha Rani explained.

There is a law which most of the public authorities do not know or pretend to be so. The Public Records Act 1993 Section 7 (1) says: The records officer shall, in the event of any unauthorised removal, destruction, defacement or alteration of any public records under his charge, forthwith take appropriate action for the recovery or restoration of such public records.

(2) The records officer shall submit a report in writing to the Director General or as the case may be the head of the Archives without any delay on any information about any unauthorised removal, destruction, defacement or alteration of any public records under his charge and about the action initiated by him and shall take action as he may deem necessary subject to the directions, if any given by the Director General or, as the case may be, head of the Archives.

Section 8 (1) says: Save as otherwise provided in any law for the time being in force, no public record shall be destroyed or otherwise disposed of except in such manner and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed.

Section 9 says: Whoever contravenes any of the provisions of section 4 or section 8 shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years or with fine which may extend to Rs 10,000 or with both. Public authority has a duty to maintain the records, or take action if destroyed illegally under this Act while they have a duty to keep records safe and in categories so that they can be disclosed on their own under Section 4 or shared under Section 3 of RTI Act, 2005 with citizens. Mere claim of missing is not acceptable without explaining the enquiry or action taken to trace the files. There is a record retention policy for public authorities which prescribe method for removing files.

The CIC draws its strength and support from Delhi High Court where the eminent judges have enhanced the power of RTI by their path-breaking judgments and empowered the common man to fight against the lethargy and corruption in public authorities. In Vishwas Bhamburkar case decided on 13th September 2013, directed the public authorities to make sincere effort to trace the files claimed to be missing and justify their actions before the Information Commissioner, if not the later has authority under RTI Act to direct the enquiry and recommend action.

After hearing the contentions and submissions, I recorded appreciation for the fighting teacher. It is difficult for a single teacher who survives on meagre salary and fear of losing it prevents her from raising the issue at any forum. The loss of job because of impossibility of re-employment will deter a teacher from fighting the mighty school management and the department of education is either lethargic or joins the management for their own reasons. I asked the young lawyer, who is son of the Principal and Manager of the School, why not he makes the institution a model one removing all maladies as alleged. I have also directed the Education department to provide the documents teacher sought. I recommended the public authority to develop a policy to protect records from selective destruction and create infrastructure for the same. Will anyone care the recommendations?

(Based on http://www.rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/CIC_AD_A_2012_003170-SA_M_128145.pdf)

The writer is Central Information Commissioner and can be reached at madabhushi.sridhar@gov.in)