Deccan Chronicle: New Delhi: Wednesday, July 30, 2014.
The more
things change, the more they stay the same. This is what can be said judging by
a PMO reply given to an RTI applicant.
In April last
year, applicant retired Commodore Lokesh Batra was refused disclosure of steps
taken by the Prime Minister’s Office to proactively part with information as
mandated under the RTI.
That prompted
Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister, to take a potshot at the PMO
questioning the UPA for taking credit for RTI even as the top office was
denying information.
Three weeks
after Mr Modi took over as the Prime Minister, his office gave a similar reply
in June this year refusing information to the RTI applicant on similar grounds.
CBI wants
exemption from RTI:
CPIO S.E.
Rizvi had then questioned the usefulness of giving the applicant details about
the list of files related to RTI Act implementation which are maintained under
the ES-2 Sec-tion of the PMO and other details.
He had
refused to disclose information saying the query would fall in the category of
one “where the applicant has not specified how the information is useful to him
either personally, socially or nationally”.
Under the
Right to Information Act, an RTI applicant is not required to give any reasons
while seeking information.
Mr Batra
posed a similar question to the PMO on May 19 seeking details of the files
maintained by it related to the implementation of RTI.
But he has
now got the same answer from Mr Rizvi which was given to him last year.
He regretted
that despite change of government, “nothing seems to have changed in the PMO”.