DNA; Ashutosh Shukla; Friday, November 12, 2010:
On his first day of hearing, the state’s new chief information commissioner (SCIC) Vilas Patil sent a letter to government departments and agencies, stressing on the need to implement section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The section stipulates government bodies to voluntarily publicise information relating to their functioning. This would mean displaying it at the office premises or on the website, or making it available to the public in the form of a publication. RTI activists have been demanding the implementation of this section.
“We get a large number of complaints because of the non-implementation of section 4,” said Patil. “Most appeals would not be made if government bodies take interest in the provisions of the section. I did the same thing [stressing on the implementation of section 4] in my previous stint too. Public information officers (PIOs) have been particularly warned, as some of them do not even turn up for hearings. Some were warned today, as they sent representatives.”
The letter states that all 17 sub sections of section 4 be implemented. Most of them are related to particulars of the organisation, the procedure followed in the decision-making process, the norms set by the organisation for the discharge of its functions, the duties of its people, etc.
Ideally, government bodies should have voluntarily displayed this information within 120 days of the passing of the RTI Act. But most have not done so.
The letter goes on to warn PIOs and the first appellate authority against taking the Act lightly. As information commissioner, Patil had earlier fined 250 PIOs a total amount of about Rs20 lakh over a period of five years.
SK Nangia, an activist, said, “The moment Patil took over, his priorities were speeding up the clearance of pending cases and the implementation of section 4. We welcome this and will see how authorities react.”
.JPG)
.JPG)
