The Times of India: Hyderabad: Thursday, May 24, 2012.
At a time when clamour for bringing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the purview of the proposed Lokpal to make the agency more transparent is getting louder, the investigation agency has recently refused to entertain a Right to Information (RTI) petition from a Hyderabad-based activist citing the blanket exemption to it from the RTI Act.
However, the activist challenged this decision since no agency, including CBI, can deny information on corruption.
CJ Karira, a city-based activist belonging to 'rtiindia.org', lodged a complaint with the Chief Information Commission (CIC), New Delhi, stating that the CBI had refused to give information about corruption cases involving politicians, public servants and others during the last five years in violation of the RTI Act.
The activist claimed his RTI application to CBI, seeking information related to corruption, was not even opened by the agency and sent back marked 'refused'.
"Then I wrote a letter to CBI director A P Singh informing him that his officers had refused to entertain his RTI application by not even opening the envelop. The information sought is about allegations of corruption, which the agency is supposed to share,'' Karira said in his letter.
To his shock, the CBI director's office gave a short and terse reply, "It is to inform you that notification number 1/3/2011- IT dated June 9, 2011 of Government of India, the RTI Act 2005 do not apply to CBI now".
"My contention is based on section 24 of the RTI Act, which allows the central government to exempt an organisation from the purview of the Act. However, it should be noted that under the same section information sought about corruption and human rights violations cannot be denied by these exempted agencies,'' the activist told TOI.
In his complaint to CIC, he also referred about the office memorandum of the Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions as proof which clearly stated, "This provision (i.e., exemption to any agency) does not exempt these organisations from the purview of the Act in respect of the information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations".
The activist also requested the CIC to inquire under 18(1)(f), since he suspects that the CBI had disbanded the structure of Central Public Information Officer, which is also against the guidelines of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
.JPG)
.JPG)
