Tapan Kumar Pradhan - Human Rights and Crusade Against Corruption

Human Rights and Crusade Against Corruption

Dr Pradhan has been a relentless crusader for bringing transparency in public institutions. By the innovative use of the Right to Information he has exposed gross irregularities in public affairs. In 2009, he made a petition to the Central Information Commission of India to bring about transparency in the Performance Appraisal System in RBI. Pradhan was the first person in RBI and the second public sector employee overall in India to obtain his PAR report through RTI Act. As against CIC's view that PAR was "confidential personal information", Pradhan famously contended that PAR is the appraisal committee's impersonal evaluation of the public service rendered by public servants in their impersonal capacity in a public organisation; and hence there is nothing personal about PAR. Pradhan still fights for full public disclosure of PAR marks. However, following his petition, Reserve Bank of India was forced to disclose the PAR reports to all employees. In the words of Smt Usha Thorat, the ex-Deputy Governor of RBI, Pradhan makes "ingenious use of the RTI Act" to redress individual grievances. He has also used the RTI Act to expose massive irregularities in the Indian Railways, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Air India and urban development authorities in Indian cities. Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan's polemic against the Drug Mafia and his advocacy of "socially productive and peaceful" use of banned substances was a major thought process behind the 2008 UK Sequel of the classic US movie Hemp for Victory.