Times of India: Ahmedabad: Monday, June 05, 2017.
Central
Information Commissioner (CIC) has returned a plea under Right to Information
(RTI) Act filed by a city-based activist seeking details of black money seized
after demonetization. The office has said it has returned the application as it
was in Gujarati and not written in English or Hindi.
City-based
RTI activist Bharatsinh Jhala had filed the petition in March this year after
the income tax department of Gujarat refused to divulge information regarding
cases of black money seized under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS). The I-T
department said that it does not maintain any statistics regarding people who
have declared money or assets under income declaration scheme (IDS). After
this, Jhala moved his application before the CIC.
In its reply
to the applicant, the CIC office said that the plea was returned for removal of
deficiencies. "The documents submitted with the appeal/ complaint are not
in English or Hindi. A translated version, either in Hindi or English of the
same, may be submitted," reads the reply dated May 12 given by deputy
registrar of CIC. Talking to TOI, Jhala said, "This is violation of core
principles of RTI Act because a citizen is deprived of his right to
information, just because he does not know English or Hindi."
"One
cannot return a plea seeking information on valid grounds, just because it was
in Gujarati. I have used a recognized regional language of the country.
Besides, I have also attached documents of the RTI reply (which denied
information) given by I-T department. So there was no such issue of not
understanding my plea," Jhala said. "Even if the CIC officer could
not understand my plea, he should have got it translated," Jhala added.
Another city-based RTI activist, Pankti Jog, said that there are no norms in
RTI Act through which one can deny information merely on the issue of language.
"RTI norms say that the plea can be filed either in English, Hindi or in
local language," Jog said.
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