The article has been written by Ronika Tater, from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun. This is an exhaustive article with various provisions under the Grievance Bill, 2011, relevant laws and provides the importance of the implementation of the bill in a democratic society.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Right of Citizens for Time-Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievance Bill, 2011 (henceforth referred to as the GR Bill) was introduced in the Lok Sabha to create a procedure to ensure timely delivery of goods and services to citizens. This bill was tabled in Lok Sabha at the time of public outbreak over the Lokpal Bill in 2011. A significant bill was the need of an hour to guarantee delivery of services to citizens and to redress their grievance through a mechanism. However, this bill addresses the gap between corruption and its far-reaching consequences on citizen’s on their regular interaction with the government institution.
Important provisions
Clause 2(o) of the GR Bill, 2011 broadly defines the term ‘service’ to include all the goods and services, including functions, obligations, responsibility or duty, to be provided or rendered by a public authority. It is vital to note that this bill makes a mandatory provision that every public authority should publish a Citizens Charter within six months of the enforcement of the Act.
The bill is a mandatory provision that every public authority publishes a Citizens’ Charter within six months of the enforcement of the Act. It spells out the time frame for delivery of service, and any officer not adhering to the Citizen’s Charter will have to pay the penalty to deduct from the officer’s salary. It also provides a grievance redressal for violation of citizen charter. The analysis of important improvisation are below-mentioned:
1. Scope of the definition ‘complaint’ in this bill
The definition of complaint widens the scope and reach of the bill. It is to be noted that a complaint can be filed if it has not provided a service or obligation mentioned in the Citizen Charter. As it is clear from the clause that even if a service or goods is not stated in the Citizen Charter, redress can be sought if it contains the obligation to render service in any law, provisions, policy or scheme mentioned in the law of the land.
This bill has a significantly broader scope of the definition than existing law that has a similar aim respective to the GR Bill which entitles citizens to time-bound delivery of services and grievance redress. The current bill enables the citizens to access the grievance redress mechanism for addressing their grievances related to the diverse functioning of the public authority. However, the grounds for rejection of the complaint is not clear or specified in this bill. It is necessary to avoid autocracy in the proper functioning of the mechanism in the admission and rejection of complaints.
2. Who comes within the ambit of this Bill?
Clause 2(n) of the GR Bill, 2011 defines various public authorities irrespective of their assigned role played in the administration. The current bill mentions a list of all institutions and authorities irrespective of whether they rendered the right to citizens to goods or services. Different public authority functions in different departments of the administration such as research, development, and other policy related work which are conflating the role of public authority defined in this bill, however, they will also fall within the jurisdiction of this Bill. The primary role of public authority provides several functions ranging from enquiry grievance issues to reviewing legal safeguards. It is important to note the functions that fall within the ambit of the definition ‘service’ as it is subjective in nature. The bill fails to provide the standards and norms for these functions in order to redress the grievance.
The important question raised is that will the judiciary come under the ambit of the definition of the service? How will the Bill apply to existing quasi-judicial authorities and tribunal that are engaged in various forms of grievance redress mechanism? In such cases, a distinction between the administrative and judicial framework should be provided as the latter one is not bound by time frame, without the lack of exceptions mentioned in the bill.
3. Compliance of standards and norms mentioned in the Citizen Charter
Clause 2(e) of the GR Bill, 2011 defines the term Citizen Charter as a document which should contain information about the goods supplied and service rendered, the duties and obligation of the public servant to address grievance within the time frame. Every public authority should maintain a Citizen Charter listing all the rules, obligation, functioning, commitment for the delivery of goods and services at a specified time frame, non-compliance of the Charter will be the basis of the complaint before the authorities under the Bill. Furthermore, the absence of the Citizen Charter will not hinder the citizen’s right to seek grievance redress under the bill.
4. Implementation Structure mention under the bill
- Grievance Redress Officers (GRO)
The GRO are to be appointed in every administrative office at the central, state, district, municipalities and the panchayats. To ensure just and fairness in the system, the bill mandates the GRO be at least one level above in the hierarchy to have authoritative control over the designated public authority to perform his duties as laid out in the Citizen Charter. The duties of the appointed GRO are below-mentioned:
- Redress grievance within 30 days.
- Forward complaints not been redressed within 30 days to the DA.
- Enquiry about the occurrence of grievance and fix responsibility.
- Ensure the code of conduct in the office.
- Information and Facilitation Centres
To access speedy redress of grievance, the bill requires every public authority to establish an Information and Facilitation Centres in their area. The bill proposes a range of facilitators in order to complaint registration: call centres, customer care centres, help desks, and a people support centre. However, the establishment of these centres at different levels of government makes it cumbersome for citizens to track the redress mechanism, instead, a single-window facilitation system may redress the complaint to the appropriate GRO.
5. Complaints procedure and Appeal mechanism
The first level of redress for a citizen against the public authority for the non-compliance of Citizen Charter is before the GRO within the public authority. Thereafter, the citizen may file an appeal against the decision passed by the Designated Authority (DA) outside of the public authority. The second appeal is filed against the decision of the DA that will fall within the jurisdiction of the Central Government or the State Government before the Central Public Grievance Redressal Commission (CPGRC) and State Public Grievance Redressal Commissions (SPGRC), respectively. The grievance against the decision of the second appeal may lead to a third appeal before the Lokayukta and Lokpal, respectively.
- The first appeal before Designated Authority(DA)
A ‘Designated Authority’ is an officer or authority outside the public authority and is about the level of GRO, who has been vested with the rights to hear the first appeal aggrieved from the decision of the GRO. Each appeal or forwarded complaint should be disposed of by the DA within the specified 30 days of its receipt, however, the appeal should be considered from the receipt and not beyond 30 days. It is the duty of the DA to abide by the natural principle of justice while deciding against officer misconduct or non-compliance of the Citizen Charter.
- The appeal before the Central Public Grievance Redressal Commission (CPGRC) and State Public Grievance Redressal Commissions (SPGRC)
The appeals against the decisions of the DA or the complaints forwarded not received within the specified time frame can be filed under both the Central and State commissions with original jurisdictions with respect to complaints as below-mention:
- Citizen unable to submit an appeal to DA under the bill
- Complaint not been disposed within the time limit
- Denied the complaint on the bases of non–access to the Citizen Charter
- On any other matter not stated above or relating to registration of complaint or appeal
Both the Central and State commission can take suo moto notice of failure to deliver goods and services in accordance with the provisions of the Bill.
- Third Appeal before the Lokpal and Lokayuktas
As per Clause 47 of the GR Bill, 2011, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas is the last resort and appeals against the decisions of the Central Public Grievance Redressal Commission (CPGRC) and State Public Grievance Redressal Commissions (SPGRC) will lie before the Lokpal and Lokayuktas respectively. The time-framed within which the third appeal will be filed is prescribed by the appropriate government or authority.
Benefits
This is a pro-citizen bill, and in order to deal with grievances of the citizens, it was important to create a structure that is decentralised at all the levels of the administration. It is important to note that people in general often are suffering from grievance as they have to travel to the State or Capital to file their grievance complaint, which does not get addressed in the remote places leading to violation of basic rights of the citizen. Hence, this structure is encouraging.
Disadvantages
The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressals of their Grievances Bill, 2011, also known as Citizen Charter, holds the dream to put forward a worldwide initiative for a welfare society. This is a transformative bill with the potential to revolutionize the public service delivery of services. However, this bill falls to relate its lack of incentives, the nexus between States and Centre and in its implementation, as this bill provides for an independent commission issues such as the infrastructure and machinery should be addressed, jurisdictional clarity of the commission and the absence of a clear definition of service and public authority should be addressed in the future otherwise it would lead to built up of cases.
The nexus between the public authorities and service needs to be drawn. Further, the establishment of an independent commission makes the individual officers responsible for failure in goods and service at the specific time-framed. It would be a distortion in a democracy if it does not hold those responsible for the overall administration accountable. The major concern is to balance an adequate staff to discharge the promises made by this bill as the given resources constraint the authorities are spending most of the time in addressing grievance rather than discharging their functions. However, the success of grievance redressal mechanisms depended on its physical and geographical accessibility especially in a country like India.
Suggestions
It is very important to note that this bill is centred around the need to effect decentralisation and transfer of more powers in the hands of the citizens by increasing awareness, establishment of redressal mechanism at every level of administration, technological interventions, time-framed mechanism to address the grievance. Furthermore, the role of the judiciary should also come into cases where the grievance is not cleared from the public authority.
Conclusion
It is prominent from the origin as well as the analysis of The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressals of their Grievances Bill, 2011, also known as Citizen Charter that this bill has been a massive step forward from the existing scattered laws and provisions simultaneously both in the internal level of the government machinery and the external level of the government machinery. The main objective of this bill is to ensure justice to citizens speedily and efficiently with utmost transparency and accountability with the unsettling internal and external disturbance and also with consonance of the Right to Information Act, 2005. Further, grievance redressal mechanisms at every level of the administration would be feasible for the citizen to file their complaint in the closest area rather than travelling to the State Capital. It would also protect the public from the corruption from different levels of the administration rather than looking for accountability at the higher authority.
References
- https://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/the-right-of-citizens-for-time-bound-delivery-of-goods-and-services-and-redressal-of-their-grievances-bill-2011-2125
- Right to Information Act, 2005
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