1-yr-old’s RTI query sparks debate

Times of India; Agra: Wednesday, November 19, 2014.

Hathras toddler Dev Agarwal, who celebrated his first birthday this Children's Day, has filed an application under the Right to Information Act with the Prime Minister's Office. His query: what's the official name of our country? Is it India, Bharat, Hinduism or Aryavart? Is it possible for a country to have multiple names?

Dev's lawyer father, Saurabh Agarwal, feels proud that his son could be the youngest RTI applicant in the country. Dev had sent the query to PMO on September 27 and received a message, mentioning that the PMO is forwarding it to respective departments under section 6 (3) of the RTI Act.

Dev's uncle Gaurav Agarwal, who actually filed the plea on the toddler's behalf, is soon going to file the first appeal about delayed answer, which should have come within 30 days.

The incident, however, has triggered a debate among the activists who feel this is mockery of a serious right bestowed upon citizens after years of struggle.

Reacting sharply, Shailesh Gandhi, former information commissioner with central information commission, said, "This is nonsense. How he can ask for an information whose answer he is not going understand for another two years?"

Maintaining that the question asked by the toddler is irrelevant, the well-known RTI activist dismissed the incident as a publicity stunt.

Insisting that one can ask only those information under RTI which is present in government document, Gandhi said, "I don't think that names like Hindustan and Aryavart are being used in government terminology. These are the questions to be asked from a teacher and not from the PMO."

Ruing that people are misusing this important tool, the former information commissioner claimed that nearly 30% to 40% of queries made under RTI are completely frivolous. "They simply frustrate the department and clog the information channel, making things difficult for genuine information seekers," Gandhi added.

Lokesh Khurana, a Meerut-based RTI activist, said, "Nine years after the RTI Act was ceremoniously passed as a tool to empower the common man and ensure governmental accountability, some people seem to have developed a tendency to use it in rather unconventional ways. Some queries are absurd, and a few plain funny. This is a serious misuse of an important tool provided to a common man by the Indian constitution and we should maintain its dignity."

Expert agreed that some public sensitization regarding how to best exercise this law might have a positive effect in the long run.