RAW, IB did not report RTI queries, finds CIC

Times of India: New Delhi: Tuesday, 07 April 2015.

Security and intelligence organizations continue to work under the veil of secrecy with minimal scrutiny from Parliament and judiciary. Nearly half of them have not bothered to disclose the number of RTI applications received in the last seven years.

About 11 or 44% of the 25 security agencies including Intelligence Bureau, RAW, National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), Aviation Research Centre among others have not reported the number of applications received, rejected or information given under RTI since 2007.

In many cases, even the budget for the organization is not known. All 25 organizations are exempt from responding to RTIs except in cases of corruption and human rights violation. The organizations, however, are mandated to provide information to the Central Information Commission on the number of applications and appeals they receive.

"It is very disappointing to say the least that the 11 organizations think of themselves as being above the law of the land. Despite being exempt organizations, they have a statutory duty to submit RTI statistics to the CIC either on their own or through their parent ministry every year. However, they have not done so,'' Venkatesh Nayak from CHRI, who analyzed the data from CIC's annual report for 2013-2014, said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), for instance, has not submitted information since 2012 while the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which last reported RTI data, had a rejection rate of 100%.

"These trends go completely against the promise of transparency and accountability made by the NDA government when it came to power last year. It is strange that the highest offices of power in the country cabinet secretariat and the PMO cannot get their own exempt organizations to report RTI data to the CIC in any year. While the statistics should have been published for the year when UPA was in power, the reporting obligation fell in the year when NDA was in power. Both governments have failed to make these bodies transparent even in the matter of giving harmless information such as RTI stats. This is why people have begun to think of them as '5-star organizations' answerable neither to Parliament nor to the people but only to their political masters," he said.

There are some organizations that have bucked the trend, including Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation) and Central Reserve Police Force which have not only reported data for some years but also reduced their rejection rate.