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Letter No. : TAHRIR/2014-15/150108-1 Date : 08-01-2015
Sub. :Appeal for urgent action in the arrest and
subsequent remand to judicial custody of a veteran RTI activist and HRD
in Chennai, Tamilnadu
Sir/Madam,
TAHRIR
( Transparency, Accountability & Human Rights initiative for revolution )
is a Bareilly/Lucknow based Social Organization, working at grass-root level by
taking up & solving issues related to strengthening transparency &
accountability in public life and protection of Human Rights in India.
We
are now writing to express our grave concern over the arrest and subsequent
remand to judicial custody of a veteran RTI activist and HRD in Chennai,
Tamilnadu yesterday.
Source
of Information on the Incident:
- Media Sources in the Hindu, the Deccan Chronicle and Times of India of 8th January 2014
- Telephonic information received from the office of Satta Panchayat personally by Henri Tiphagne at about 7.45 AM on 8th January 2015
About
the Human Rights Defender under attack:
Mr.
Siva Ilango is the President of SattaPanchayat, an organization that works
using the Right to Information Act in the Tamilnadu state of India and takes up
issues of corruption and the rights of people.
The
Perpetrators:
1. The
Chief Information Commissioner, Mr. K S Sripathi and Commissioner Mr. S F Akbar
of the TN SIC for preferring a false criminal complaint when they have so many
motives against Mr. Siva Ilango and his organization for the democratic
protests that they have been undertaking.
2. The
Police of Teynampet Police station, the Assistant Commissioner of Police, the
Deputy Commissioner of Police, the Joint Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner
of Police for not adhering to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code in
relation to Sec 41 A, B &C .
3. The
Jurisdictional Judicial Magistrate at Saidapet who ordered judicial remand of
the accused in this case totally contrary to the directions of the
Supreme Court of India in ARNESH KUMAR Vs STATE OF BIHAR & ANR. CRIMINAL
APPEAL NO. 1277 OF 2014. SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRL.) No.9127 of 2013)
Date
and time of Incident:
7th
January 2015 11 AM
Place
of Incident:
Tamilnadu
State Information Commission, Chennai
Incident:
Mr.
Siva Ilango has been engaged in the extensive use of RTIs in Tamilnadu as well
as popularising the RTI and monitoring the effective functioning of the State
Information Commission in Tamilnadu.
Mr
Siva Ilango had filed an RTI application to the appropriate authorities on 22nd
February 2014 asking them details of the State’s total media advertising
expenditure from 1991 to 2014. Since the required information had not been
provided to him, he had appealed to the SIC and the SIC had posted the hearing
of the appeal on the 7th of January 2015. Mr. Siva Ilango came to
the compound of the SIC at the appointed time in his car and entered the
compound to park the same. There has always been an issue of the parking of
private vehicles of people who come to the SIC within the SIC compound which is
large enough and has space for such parking. There is also no space outside the
compound for such vehicles to be parked. The security police of the SIC have in
the past also punctured the tyres of the vehicle of Mr. Siva Ilango and they
have always asked the police to show under what provisions of law parking
inside the compound is prohibited when it is not so with the other State Human
Rights Institutions in Chennai. Accordingly yesterday also the vehicle was
parked inside and it was also punctured by the police.
Mr.
Siva Ilango went to the SIC ‘court hall’ and seated in his seat till his case
was called out. This was a second appeal after TN SIC rejected his RTI
application and first appeal. Chief Information Commissioner Mr. K S Sripathi
and Commissioner Mr. S F Akbar were in the two member bench refused to accede
to the request. They heard the PIO in this case and then are said to have
dismissed the appeal without hearing the Appellant who had expressed his desire
of being heard. The Appellant, Mr. Siva Ilango had also wanted to argue the
second appeal being seated on his seat which was objected to by the Bench. Mr.
Siva Ilango cited that even before the Central Information Commission Appellants
were permitted to sit and argue since this was not a court and asked the
provision of law which demanded that the Appellant should stand up and argue.
He continued his peaceful sit-in protest at the State Information
Commission court hall, protesting Chief Information Commissioner K.S.
Sripathi’s insistence to ‘stand’ during the hearing.
According
to Mr Ganesh, the SPI Secretary who had accompanied Mr. Siva Ilango,
Mr.Sripathi refused to hear Mr Elango unless he stood up. “The commissioner
asked the public information officer whether the information sought by the
petitioner was provided or not. He dismissed the case immediately after the PIO
replied in the affirmative,” he told this Petitioner. Protesting this, he
said, Mr Elango insisted that he be heard and again asked the commissioner to
produce the order that a petitioner should remain standing during the hearing.
However, he said when Mr Sripathi asked them to leave, Mr Elango refused to and
staged a sit-in.
Following
his protest, Mr Sripathi then adjourned the hearings in the hall and then moved
to another room and the lights in the hall were also switched off. The
Teynampet Police were summoned and a complaint preferred to them by the SIC as
a result of which the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr. Siva Baskar came
and arrested the RTI activist in Crime No 39/2015 of the E-3 Teynampet
Police Station, Chennai under Sec 294, 353 and 506 (1) of the IPC.
Mr.
Siva Ilango was then remanded to judicial custody after being produced before a
Judicial Magistrate court at Saidapet. It is further quite surprising that the
Judicial Magistrate has mechanically remanded the said ‘accused’ RTI activists
and HRD , Mr. Siva Ilango contrary to the recent Judgement of the Hon’ble
Supreme Court of India that there cannot be any further mechanical remanding of
any accused persons in all criminal cases where the sentences are below 7
years. Thus the Judicial Magistrate in this case has also further committed a
human rights violation by ordering the remand of an accused in a case
where he should not have done so and is thereby also liable to be proceeded
against in this regard.
The
organization SattaPanchayat has also in the past conducted several democratic
protests in the past for raising public attention to the improper functioning
of the SIC in the State of Tamilnadu and there have been several preventive
arrests of Mr. Siva Ilango and other members of SattaPanchayat by the
Teynampet police as was informed to this Petitioner by the Assistant
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Siva Baskar.
Most
public information officers (PIOs) in state government departments refuse or
delayed providing information to RTI applicants and SattaPanchayat strongly
feels that the TN SIC has failed to implement the RTI Act even eight
years after its enactment. RTI applicants from other districts are disappointed
, they state, because of this attitude of the commission and SattaPanchayat has
expressed their feelings publicly in the past that an inactive commission was a
waste of tax payer's money. They have in the past also demanded the removal of
chief information commissioner K S Sripathi and commissioners P Thamilselvan
and S F Akbar and blew conches to awake the sleeping commission which has done
nothing for the RTI Act in the state. A comparison with websites of information
commissions in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and other states shows that
TNSIC has disclosed very little information, while its counterparts have
provided comprehensive data on annual reports, awareness programmes and action
taken against PIOs. The number of RTI appeals disposed of by the Tamil
Nadu State Information Commission (TNSIC) has plunged by more than 50%.
Statistics from the commission's website (www.tnsic.gov.in) show that the
number of appeals the commission attended to decreased from 19,889 in 2013 to
8,121 till November 2014. The commission receives an average of 60,000 RTI
applications every year. Though RTI Act permits each state 10 commissioners and
a chief of the panel, TNSIC has only four commissioners, Christopher Nelson, P
Thamilselvan, B Neelambikai, S F Akbar and chief commissioner K S Sripathi. The
Supreme Court had asked governments to identify candidates for the post of
information commissioner, with expertise in fields mentioned in the RTI Act,
which includes law, science and technology, social service, management,
journalism, mass media, and administration and governance. Most appointments in
TNSIC have been political, activists say.
The
government has tabled in the assembly only RTI annual reports till 2008. The
commission's annual reports should declare the number of RTI applications
received by public information officers (PIOs) of government departments, cases
disposed of and fines imposed on PIOs by the commission for violations under the
RTI Act.
The
Paris Principles are also not followed in all matters relating to the SICs in
the country when they are actually State Human Rights Institutions [SHRIs] also
and need to adhere by the Paris Principles.
Appeal:
We,
therefore urge you to immediately take necessary steps to ensure that the
Hon’ble Commission
·
Orders
an immediate, thorough, transparent, effective and impartial
investigation into the above-mentioned events that led to the arrest and
remand of the RTI activist. ;
·
Uphold
the rights of RTI activists who are also human rights defenders to associate,
assembly, peacefully protest, criticise and free expression – all of which were
denied in this case in this case to the Human Rights Defender;
·
Since
this is a clear case where there has been a clear motive between the HRD,
SattaPanchayat and the Tamilnadu State Information Commission, to take up all
pending the issues where the TN SIC is not following the provisions of the RTI
act and ensure that effective steps are undertaken to undertake LokAdalats to
dispose of pending matters in the TN SIC in all the districts of the state and
then to ensure that the State Government is also made to make the necessary
appointments to the TN SIC following the provisions of the RTI and the
Paris Principles.
·
To
also ensure that all annual reports of the TN SIC are made ready and produced
before the Tamilnadu State Legislature
·
Along
with government officials guarantee in all circumstances due compensation
to the individual HRD in this case, Mr. Siva Ilango for the incarceration
that he had to face in judicial custody and give an undertaking to
the NHRC of India in writing immediately and urgently that this has been duly
carried out ;
·
To
ensure that the Judicial Magistrate Saidapet is proceeded against by the Madras
High Court for not having followed the directions of the Supreme Court of India
as regards judicial remand of persons in such cases and further get the
Madras High Court to immediately issue a circular to all Judicial Magistrates in
the state to ensure that the right to life of all people in Tamilnadu are not
violated by the Judicial Magistrates ordering the remand of such accused in
such cases where the maximum sentence is less than 7 years.
·
Enquire
whether the complete provisions of arrest as mandated by Sections 41 A,B,C and
D of the amended Criminal Procedure Code are being followed within the
jurisdiction of the Chennai Commissionerate and hold the Commissioner of
Police, Chennai responsible for all the non-compliance with these
provisions by paying a compensation personally of a sum that may be
determined for all the violations that have occurred since these provisions
were brought into force on 1.11.2010 and to order that this compensation is
paid individually by the Commissioner of Police, Chennai since he is alone in
overall responsibility and for him to make the payment to the Tamilnadu
State Legal Services Authority ;
·
That
in this specific case the concerned jurisdictional Deputy
Commissioner of Police ,Mr. Saravanan IPS, the Assistant Commissioner of
Police, Mr. Siva Baskar and the Inspector of Police Teynampet Police
station are made to all individually and collectively pay a compensation to the
concerned HRD, Mr. Siva Ilango for not following provisions of Sec
41 A & 41 C of the Cr.P.C.
·
That
the NHRC is made to undertake a special training sessions for all
Chairpersons and Members of all the State Human Rights Institutions in
Tamilnadu such as the SHRC, the SCW, the Sic, the SCM and the SCPCR with the
full assistance and cooperation of competent civil society organizations in the
state such as People’s’ Watch and the HRDA and report that this has been
carried out to the NHRC within a specific time frame.
·
That
the State Judicial Academy is made to undertake a special training on the
rights of human rights defenders to all members of the
judiciary and to ensure that all judicial officers are made to adhere strictly
the law of arrest and judicial remand as directed by the Criminal Procedure
Code and the judgements of the Hon’ble SC.
·
Along
with local district officials puts an end to all acts of harassment
against all RTI Activists and all human rights defenders in general to
ensure that in all circumstances they carry out their
activities without any hindrances;
- Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially:
-
Article 1, which states that “everyone
has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and
to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights
and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”
-
Article 12.2, which provides
that “"the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the
protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in
association with others, against any violence, threats,
retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse
discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as
a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to
in the present Declaration”;
- More generally, ensure in all circumstances the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and with international human rights instruments ratified by India is strictly adhered to in the state of Tamilnadu. .
Looking
forward to your immediate action in this regard,
Sincerely yours,
Sanjay Sharma سنجے شرما संजय शर्मा
( Founder &
Chairman - TAHRIR)
Transparency,
Accountability & Human Rights Initiative for Revolution
101,Narain Tower,F Block,Rajajipuram
Lucknow,Uttar
Pradesh-226017
Website :http://tahririndia.blogspot.in/
E-mail : tahririndia@gmail.com
Twitter Handle : @tahririndia
Mobile : 9369613513
To,
Shri
A. K. Parashar
National Focal Point - Human Rights
Defenders & Joint Registrar
National Human Rights Commission
ManavAdhikarBhawan,
Block-C, GPO Complex, INA,
New Delhi – 110 023
ThiruO.Panneerselvam
Hon'ble Chief
Minister
Govt. of Tamil Nadu,
Chief Minister's Office Secretariat,
Chennai 600 009
Email:
cmsec@tn.gov.in, cmcell@tn.gov.in
Thiru K. Gnanadesikan I.A.S.,
Chief Secretary to Government
Govt. of Tamil Nadu,
Secretariate,
Chennai 600 009
PBX No. 044-25665566
Email: cs@tn.gov.in
Thiru
Ashok Kumar, IPS
Director General of Police,
Post Box No.601,
Dr.Radhakrishnan Salai,
Mylapore,
Chennai-600 004
Ph: 044- 28447777,2844775
Fax: 044-28447703
E.mail: dgp@tn.gov.in
Mrs.
Justice T.Meenakumari,
Hon’ble Chairperson,
State Human Rights Commission
Thiruvarangam
143, P.S. Kumarasamy Raja Salai
(Greenways Road) Chennai 600 028, Tamilnadu.
Phone : 91-44-2495 1484
Fax : 91-44-2495 1486
E-mail : shrc@tn.nic.in
143, P.S. Kumarasamy Raja Salai
(Greenways Road) Chennai 600 028, Tamilnadu.
Phone : 91-44-2495 1484
Fax : 91-44-2495 1486
E-mail : shrc@tn.nic.in
Mr. S. George,
Commissioner of
Police
Greater Chennai Police,
No.132, Commissioner Office Building,
EVK Sampath Road,
Vepery,
Chennai – 600 007.
Ph: 044-25615048
Fax: 044-25615028
(Fax)
E.mail: cop@vsnl.net
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