Indian Express: Thiruvanathpuram: Friday, April 24, 2015.
Section 21 of
the Right to Information Act (RTI), which guarantees legal protection to public
information officers has never been invoked in the state or in the country for
that matter. In a clear deviation from this, it was invoked for the first time
in a case in which a public information officer was victimised by his higher
official for giving out information on an RTI query.
Highlighting
Section 21 of the RTI Act, the State Information Commission observed: “No suit,
prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against any person for
anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done under this act or
any rule made thereunder.’’ It also pointed out that the public information
officer does not have to seek the permission of his higher-ups before
disseminating any information.
K G
Vijayakumar, then an administrative officer of Horticorp and currently, the
Director of Printing, Government Press, Thiruvananthapuram approached the State
Information Commission alleging that the Principal Secretary of the General
Administration Department had ordered a probe against him as the then MD of the
Horticorp, Pratapan, had lodged a complaint against him.
“My fault was
that I have handed over every details sought in an RTI query. I was first
transferred to Child Rights Commission,” he said.