Indian Express: Lucknow: Wednesday, August 01, 2012.
The Akhilesh Yadav Cabinet on Tuesday exempted the Lokayukta from the purview of Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, becoming the only state in the country to do so, according to RTI activists.
The government’s rationale behind keeping the Lokayukta out of RTI Act’s purview is that it is an investigating agency and so there is a need to maintain secrecy in its investigation of corruption cases. A disclosure can adversely affect the course of the investigation, the government believes.
RTI Activist Salim Beig said the Lokayukta institution in other states of the country is under the purview of RTI Act. It should never be exempted from the RTI as it probes the cases of corruption and the RTI Act, under its section 24, mandates that no information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations should be excluded from the RTI, he said.
Beig, who described the Cabinet decision as unfortunate, said that “instead of increasing the transparency to tackle the deep-rooted corruption, the government is taking decisions which will increase corruption as the accountability of the institution will be curbed.”
Last year, Madhya Pradesh had exempted the Special Police Establishment of Lokayukta from the ambit of RTI Act. However, other wings of the Lokayukta organisation remain within the purview of RTI Act and have public information officers appointed there.
Lokayukta N K Mehrotra said he had written to the government about the inconvenience caused by some people asking information pertaining to investigations under the RTI Act.
Earlier, as many as six ministers in the Mayawati government had lost their job after Mehrotra’s adverse reports. He had then given the credit of Lokayukta’s effectiveness in tackling cases of corruption to his disclosure of information to the press which, he said, forced the government to take action on his reports.
When asked if the exemption of Lokayukta from the RTI will decrease the effectiveness of the institution, Mehrotra declined to comment saying first he will have to see the notification.
In its manifesto, the SP had promised to make Lokayukta a multi-member body and attach the Economic Offences Wing of the police with it to strengthen the institution. Both these promises are yet to be fulfilled by the government, though Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav says his government’s first priority is to fulfill the promises made in the election manifesto.
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