Times of India: New Delhi: Tuesday,
April 04, 2017.
A new
provision that allows for an RTI case to be closed in the event of death of the
applicant has come under criticism from activists who fear that this will
encourage attacks on whistleblowers. The provision is part of the draft RTI
rules made public by the Modi government recently, which replace the 2012
provisions, do not have any new clauses either for increasing the fees or
prescribing a word-limit to the application.
The proposed
rules have been placed by the department of personnel and training on its
website for comments from public. The controversial clause says, "The
proceedings pending before the Commission shall abate on the death of the
appellant.'' In 2017, there have been more than 375 recorded cases of attacks
on citizens who sought information to expose corruption and wrongdoing in
various public authorities. Of these, 56 are murders, at least 157 cases of
physical assault and more than 160 cases of harassment and threats - some of
which have resulted in death by suicide, activists said.
Commonwealth
Human Rights Initiative's (CHRI) Venkatesh Nayak said, "By legally
permitting withdrawal of appeals vested interests will feel emboldened to
pressurise RTI users to withdraw their appeals before the CIC. If this proposed
rule becomes law at the Centre, most other states will make similar amendments,
thereby unwittingly jeopardising the life and safety of RTI users. These
amendments must not be allowed to go through when the Whistleblower Protection
Act, 2011 has been put in cold storage."
A new
proposal now allows the CIC to convert a complaint into second appeal which
would mean it can order the disclosure of information to an applicant who has
come under complaint clause of the RTI Act which was not the case earlier. This
follows a Supreme Court order that had said that the CIC while hearing a plea
under complaint clause cannot order disclosure of the information which can
only be provided if the person is approaching it under second appeal or Section
19 of the Act.
Some
activists criticised the short time period of a fortnight offered for comments.
"The time given is too less. How will people know that something like this
is placed on website for them to give opinion," RTI activist Comm (retd)
Lokesh Batra said.
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