Business Standard: New delhi: Monday, September 30, 2013.
A
Parliamentary panel's decision to seek public views in English and Hindi over
government's move to amend RTI Act to give immunity to political parties from
providing information is being opposed by NGOs and RTI activists.
The
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has written to Rajya Sabha Chairman
Hamid Ansari to immediately withdraw an advertisement seeking comments on
amending RTI Act as it violates the people's fundamental right to freedom of
speech and expression.
The Rajya
Sabha Secretariat, on behalf of a parliamentary standing committee, had
published advertisements on September 21 in some newspapers inviting people's
comments on the RTI Amendment Bill in English or Hindi within 15 days.
"CHRI
submits to you that the terms and conditions specified in the advertisement for
sending comments and views on the RTI Amendment Bill amount to an unreasonable
restriction of the citizens' fundamental right to speech and expression,"
said Maja Daruwala, director of CHRI.
The
advertisement also ignores India's linguistic diversity. According to the 2001
Census data, at least 50 per cent of the citizenry in India does not speak or
read or write in English or Hindi.
"By
insisting on making submissions in English and Hindi only, the Rajya Sabha
Secretariat has deprived one half of the citizenry of the right to send
comments and views on the RTI Amendment Bill," the letter said.
All citizens
have the right to send their submissions on the RTI Amendment Bill in any of
the languages recognised in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Opportunities must be created for people to exercise this right, it said.
The NGO also
objected to one of the clauses in the advertisement which seeks to keep any
memoranda received by the committee as "confidential".
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