BENGALURU: Things seem to have taken a turn for the worse at the Karnataka Information Commission office, with nine serving state information commissioners writing a letter to Governor Vajubhai Vala against the chief information commissioner N C Srinivas, on Saturday.
The letter flayed the commissioner for his reported misbehaviour and his incapacity as the chief information commissioner. Speaking to mediapersons after submitting the memorandum, information commissioner H P Sudhan Das said that Srinivas was preventing them from taking part in important events. He said Srinivas was taking decisions without any discussing with them and was interfering in their matters. S L Patil, another information commissioner said there was an RTI convention held in New Delhi on October 12, which Srinivas attended on his own without the other commissioners. They also accused Srinivas of misbehaving with citizens and staffers, but had no examples to show the same.
Countering their allegations, Srinivas held a press conference, where he said that he was acting as per the Information Act, Section 15, Sub Clause 4. He said that as per the rules, he had the right to take administrative decisions.
Srinivas added that he did not think it was necessary to send the entire team to Delhi for a conference which would cost the state exchequer at least Rs 15 lakh. He said that if the commissioners were unhappy, then one could be sent every month to Delhi for the RTI meetings.
He added that he introduced a system of following a set format for issuing orders which will help in court proceedings, which he claimed had not gone down well with the other commissioners. He said that commissioners S M Somashekhar and K P Manjunath had approached him and voiced their grievances, which were resolved. Srinivas said that if any others had problems, they should approach him directly instead of taking such steps.