Wednesday, January 27, 2010

For Record Sake: DoPT warns ministries to maintain proper records to avoid paying compensation


THE department of personal and training (DoPT) has warned various departments and ministries that failing to maintain official records may force them to pay compensation to the complainant. In fact, poor maintaining of official records has turned out to be a handicap for delivering information to RTI (Right to Information) applicants. The department of personal and training (DoPT) has now asked all ministries and departments to strictly adhere to the mandate of Section 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act which requires every public authority to maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and form which would facilitate the right to information.
In fact, the Central Information Commission in a particular case pointed out that such a default could qualify for payment of compensation to the complainant. “Section 19(8)(b) of the Act gives power to the Commission to require the concerned public authority to compensate the complainant for any loss or other detriment suffered,” an office memorandum dated January 20, 2010 said.
DoPT’s Office Memo, dated January 20, 2010

Profile of DR Karthikeyan, retired IPS and recipient of Padma Sri award

It was not an easy task for DR Karthikeyan, an IPS officer of 1964 batch, to investigate the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Unlike the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi or former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the 1991 case of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was quite a tricky one. But Karthikeyan who as a special director headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, did a commendable job. The appreciation came from none other than Supreme Court Bench looking into the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
On the eve of 61st Republic Day, Karthikeyan is one of the just four former civil servants to get a Padma award. Born on October 2, 1939 and with a degree of BSc and BL, Karthikeyan held several postings abroad including in Moscow and Australia, to finally move up the police service ladder to become CBI director.
Who will investigate what's on Karthikeyan's mind about his next big move?

4 comments:

  1. Forget keeping records or official files, maintaining government data in India is adequately poor. It needs serious attention.

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  2. Government is distributing freebies in form of Padma Awards and the beneficiaries are the old cronies. It is good to know that some “Tamasha” makers like Chatwal have also been selected for the honor. What else is expected from such a government?. The party in power only trains dummy guns, incapable of doing any harm, on Chatwal to merely show as if they are opposing him, but most of them would sit in his lap once they visit USA. It is time, perhaps, for “White Collar” criminals to become nation’s hero. I am in pain to say that such a nation would dig its own roots.

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  3. Thank you Babu blogger for the insights given about our domestic babus but would also like to get similar insights of our global babus.

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  4. Record management in central government's ministries and departments have become worse. There is no recruitment of daftaries and peons who earlier use to stitch files keep it in orderly manner. Recruitment at clerk level has also been stopped. Central Secretariat Service who once considered to be backbone but with the frequent transfer they also loose track on records and history of a case or an organisation. officers who serve in ministries under central staffing pattern do not take any interest on record management because they come for a fixed tenure. They come enjoy and go. Days are coming when in the absence of records, no one in the secretariat have any knowledge of anything. Serving in the Secretariat has already become very difficult in the absence of proper structure, system, staff and right type of attitude of officers and staff. God save the Secretariat.

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