Anindo Dey : Times of India : SEP 13,2010 :
JAIPUR: In an apparent goof-up, the chief minister's office (CMO) recently rejected an RTI query sought by a 17-year-old boy, belonging to chief minister Ashok Gehlot's home district Jodhpur, on the ground that the applicant was a minor.
The youth, Lakhan Agmalliya, a BPL card holder, had enquired about issues taken up by the state government with the PMO for boosting development ever since the Ashok Gehlot assumed power in the state. Lakhan is the son of 51-year-old Lakshmi, who is suffering from leprosy and is staying at Gandhi Leprosy Ashram in Masuria at Jodhpur. He had sought the information on June 30.
He wanted to know how the Central grants to the state have been spent, steps taken by the CMO for expediting various departmental matters pending with the various ministries in the Centre and status of some cases handed over to the CBI for investigation. The youth had also asked for detailed information on all communications that the CMO had done in these regard with the PMO, Planning Commission and various other departments.
The application also sought information on reports of the Vyas Committee and Tripathi committee set up for establishment of central institutions in the state and a refinery in the state.
However, when Lakhan received a communication from the CMO, the one page letter written on July 29 and signed by a deputy secretary from the secretariat, just informed him that as per the BPL card, he was not yet a "major" and hence the application sent by him was null and void. Lakhan had sent his BPL card with the application as the required fee for such applications are waivered for BPL persons.
"There is no clause in the RTI Act that says that a person has to be a major for seeking any information. All it requires is that the person should be an Indian citizen. The deputy secretary's refusal to grant me any information implies that he is challenging my citizenship of the country," says Lakhan.
The youth has now filed an appeal with the first appellate authority, RTI, challenging the refusal for granting information. "Article 5 of the Constitution says that anyone who is born in the country or for whose either parent was born in the country or those who have been staying in the country for more than five years are Indian citizens. How can my wanting information be challenged. This is my Fundamental Right under Section 19 (1) A of the Constitution," he says.
The letter from the deputy secretary also does not have any of the mandatory information that is required to be furnished when an information is rejected under the RTI Act. Section 7 (8) of the Act says: "Where a request has been rejected...the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer ... shall communicate to the person making the request the reasons for such rejection; the period within which an appeal against such rejection may be preferred; and the particulars of the appellate authority."
"This is an absolute denial of information. Whatever the case be, the reason given for not giving the information cited in the letter is absolutely wrong. The Act does not mandate that a person has to be an adult for getting information under the RTI Act unlike MGNREGA. There have been many cases in the country where children have applied and got information under the RTI Act. All it requires is a person to be an Indian citizen," says Nikhil Dey of Suchna Evum Rozgar Ka Adhikar Abhiyan, which spearheaded the movement for bringing RTI in the state before the Act was formed at the Centre.
When contacted, Vikram Singh Chauhan, deputy secretary for RTI in CMO said, "Yes yes," perhaps implying that a mistake had been committed. "We have sent him a revised reply and have given him the information."
However, when told that the applicant has filed an appeal, he replied: "May be he has not yet got it. We don't send such letters directly, it is first sent to the CM's secretariat."
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