The News Minute: New Delhi: Sunday,
May 01, 2016.
Anyone
listening to MPs complain in Parliament about the Right to Information (RTI)
Act recently might wonder why this frivolous law exists. After all, when
Samajwadi Party MP, Naresh Agarwal said the RTI was being misused, he found
much support in the Rajya Sabha with NCP member Praful Patel saying the Act had
destroyed all objectivity since bureaucrats only wondered “what will come out
under the RTI. And Congress MP Rajeev Shukla hinted that RTI activists are
making money off of the Act.
Even the
government, on its part, agreed to look into the concerns raised about the
misuse of RTI.
But this
seems another example of wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as
even a casual peek at recent history suggests the revolutionary act that came
in 2005 has pulled more than its fair share of weight. Here are just some of
the biggest examples of the RTI being put to great use:
Adarsh
Scam:
The 31-storey
Adarsh Housing Society in Colaba, Mumbai was originally supposed to be a
6-storey building for war widows and heroes of the 1999 Kargil War. RTI
applications filed by activists Simpreet Singh and Yogacharya Anandji brought
to light how bureaucrats, politicians and military officials had flouted rules
and acquired flats in the building below markets rates. The revelations ended
with then Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan having to resign and on
Friday the Bombay High Court ordered the demolition of the building.
Public
Distribution Scam in Assam:
Krishak Mukti
Sangram Samiti, a non-governmental organisation based in Assam, filed an RTI
request in 2007 that revealed irregularities in the distribution of food meant
for people below poverty line. The RTI resulted in the allegations being probed
and several government officials being arrested.
Commonwealth
Games:
The
Commonwealth Games scam or the CWG scam that left the Indian government
red-faced was riddled with misappropriation of funds and corruption charges. An
RTI filed by a non-profit organisation called Housing and Land Rights Networks
revealed how Rs 744 crore from social welfare projects for Dalits had been
diverted to the Commonwealth Games from 2005-2006 to 2010-2011.
Government
Primary School Scholarship:
When NCP
Minister Praful Patel mocked the RTI act by saying that any “chaiwala” and
“paanwadi” can ask for any information these days, he didn’t seem to have
reckoned with cases like that of Manoj from Vailpoor, a village in Nizamabad
district from Telangana, into account. Manoj, a beedi worker’s son and a grade
4 student, decided to find out why 15 students studying in the Government
Primary School in the area weren’t receiving the promised scholarship amount form
the Labour welfare department for the academic year 2011-12. Manoj’s RTI
application got 10 children their scholarships.
IIM’s
Admission Criteria:
A
visually-impaired girl Vaishnavi Kasturi was denied a seat in the Indian
Institute of Management, Bangalore in 2007 even after scoring well in the
entrance examination. Kasturi filed an RTI application to find out their
selection process. The RTI application revealed that the entrance mattered
little as compared to Class X and XII results.
Elaborating
on why India needs the RTI, journalist and RTI activist Ritu Goyal said “When
you file an RTI you get documents with the ‘notings’ of officers on the side
which sometimes are more telling than the document itself and makes the
bureaucrat directly responsible. This could be one of the reasons why
politicians and bureaucrats are running scared,” she further added.
According to
Goyal, not only has RTI made information accessible to the public but since its
introduction government departments have started putting out information online
on websites to avoid getting RTI applications. Thus the Act has brought far
more information into the public domain that have emerged directly from RTI
queries.
Indeed, the
success of the RTI is visible from the extent of violence that has turned
against activists. Talking about how the government should be working towards
protecting RTI activists and journalists, Dr KV Babu, a physician and RTI
activist from Kannur, said “We as RTI activists are very scared. Just two months
ago there was a case in Mangalore where an RTI activist was killed in broad day
light. The RTI Act doesn’t have a provision to keep the applicants name a
secret. RTI activists should be looked at as whistleblowers and should be
protected.”
As for those
who look at filing RTI applications as a money-making activity, Gangadhar
Patil, a journalist who has filed around 3000 RTI applications said, “It is
true that people misuse the Act but screwdrivers and knifes are also used to
kill people but that doesn’t mean we stop manufacturing them. Similarly, just
because of some people who are misusing the Act we shouldn’t punish others who
are using it for genuine reasons.”