The Wire: New Delhi: Saturday,
April 08, 2017.
In
2010, the government lost the folder containing public comments on the draft
proposed RTI rules.
The new draft
RTI rules have been placed in the public domain by the central government to
elicit the views of RTI activists and the general public on the proposed
amendments to the rules. However, an RTI activist has highlighted how during
the same process in 2010, the Centre did not maintain records and later even
lost the folder containing public comments. In light of this, he has demanded
that the Centre make better preparations for ensuring the security and proper
upkeep of public comments.
The issue has
been raised by RTI activist Commodore (Retired) Lokesh Batra who had unearthed
that the folder dealing with the public comments had gone missing. In the wake
of past mistakes, he has demanded that the Centre must assure the public that
the records of public comments will be maintained in compliance with Section
4(1)(a) of the Right to Information Act 2005.
He has also
asked that the government place in the public domain the criteria for
processing the public comments.
The Centre
had recently stated that “the proposed amendments to the rules are in public
domain for comments by April 15, 2017, and will be finalised keeping in view
the public feedback received in the matter.” In view of this, Batra has also
demanded that the government reveal the final draft rules before notifying
them.
It was in
December 2010 that Batra had filed an application under the RTI Act with the
Department of Personnel and Training to learn about the response to the
‘amendment to RTI rules’. In response to his detailed questionnaire, the chief
public information officer and under secretary had noted in February 2011 that
“due to administrative reasons the communication under reference was not
diarised and it was placed in a folder”. Further, he had stated that “no
specific procedure/policy has been laid down for processing comments to the
said OM (office memorandum)”.
Subsequently,
Batra had filed another RTI before the same officer, R.K. Girdhar, in June 2012
asking about the details of the ‘proposed amendments to RTI rules’ as put out
by the office memorandum of December 10, 2010. As the RTI activist also sought
details of the responses received on the amendments, the official in his
response sent on June 29, 2012 admitted that “the folder on the subject
‘proposed amendments to RTI rules’ is missing and could not be traced”.
The under
secretary of DoPT had stated that all desks of the department have been urged
to return it, if found. He had issued a communication to all sections and desks
of DoPT in North Block as also a request to the National Informatics Centre to
upload the circular on the internal system.
The issue of
ensuring proper upkeep of the draft RTI rules 2017 assumes significance as it
has already evoked a lot of controversy and flak due to the manner in which it
has sought to undermine the issue of safety and security of the applicants,
especially by once again bringing forth the clause on abatement of applications
on the death of the applicant. This, RTI activists are claiming, would imperil
the lives of the applicants as vested interests may look to eliminate them to
bring the cases to an end.
The Centre
has responded saying that the draft RTI rules 2017 have only been put out to
seek comments on the key provisions of the Central Information Commission
(Management) Regulations and the Rules of 2012, and have not proposed any
substantive changes to them.