Economic
Times: New Delhi: Wednesday, 08 April 2015.
CBI which
primarily probes corruption cases has not filed its mandatory report giving statistics
of RTI applications received and processed by it since 2012 when it was
included in the list of exempted organisations.
In contrast,
Intelligence Bureau which holds information pertaining to security and
intelligence is regularly filing returns with the Central Information
Commission despite being in the list of exempted organisations, an analysis of
annual report of the Central Information Commission done by activistVenkatesh
Nayak of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative reveals.
Nayak says CBI
which functions under the Department of Personnel and Training, nodal ministry
for RTI implementation, has stopped reporting RTI statistics since 2012 after
it was notified under Section 24 of the RTI Act.
The
provisions of the RTI Act do not apply on the exempted organisations but when
it comes to any material in any form held by them pertaining to allegations of
corruption and human rights violations provisions of the transparency law have
to be abided by.
CBI which is
like any other state police primarily deals with allegations of corruption has
been avoiding to follow mandatory provisions of the law.
"By
holding such a position... readers end up disrespecting the security and
intelligence organisations which faithfully report RTI stats, like the
Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) for
example," he said.
The IB and
the CRPF have no problems with giving such harmless information, he said.
"As on
date, the Government of India has notified 25 security and intelligence
organisations as exempted from the ordinary obligations of transparency under
the RTI Act like their parent departments and ministries and other public
authorities. However, they are required to provide access to information if it
relates to allegations of corruption and human rights violation. Such
information must not be withheld under the RTI Act," Nayak said.
He said by
logical extension of this statutory requirement, they must also submit their
reports to the CIC under Section 25 of the Act about the number of RTI
applications received, amount of fees collected and details of cases where
access to information was rejected.
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