Times of India: Chennai: Thursday, 24 July 2014.
Continuing
their protest against the indifference of the Tamil Nadu State Information
Commission, RTI activists from across the state staged a day-long hunger strike
at Valluvar Kottam here on Wednesday.
The
protesters planned to take out a rally to the TNSIC headquarters at Teynampet
and lock the gates of the office at 5pm but police arrested 52 activists at the
venue of the fast. They were later released.
During the
protest, more than 200 activists, including senior citizens, demanded the
dismissal of the TNSIC and urged the Tamil Nadu government to table the pending
RTI annual reports before the assembly. They also wanted an online facility to
check the status of appeals filed before the commission.
"The
governor should dismiss this inactive commission functioning against the RTI
Act. This sleeping commission is a waste of tax payers' money," said Siva
Elango, president of Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, which organised the protest.
Satta
Panchayat Iyakkam general secretary Senthil Arumugam said the decision to
strike received an overwhelming response. "Not even one RTI applicant is
satisfied with the commission. There are complaints that commissioners are
misbehaving with applicants."
V
Gopalakrishnan, who had filed more than 1,000 RTI applications, said he had
stopped filing second appeals. "Replies are either vague or incomplete.
But commission disposes appeals without providing any information. It never
imposes fines on PIOs."
C Duraisamy,
a 70-year-old who travelled here from Coimbatore to take part in the strike,
said it was no surprise that all government departments were rejecting RTI
applications without any basis. "PIOs know the commission will not take
any action even if they don't provide information to applicants."
RTI activists
have been conducting a series of protests since 2010 when K S Sripathi was
appointed state chief information commissioner.
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