Hindustan
Times: Sangrur: Saturday, 25 July 2015.
Right to
Information (RTI) activist Kamal Anand has not yet received information on his
RTI application, dated May 19, 2015, addressed to the central public
information officer (CPIO), ministry of home affairs, seeking details of
expenditure on Prime Ministers' foreign visits, who all accompanied them, as
well as of their time-to-time domestic tours from 2004-2015.
Anand, who is
an advocate, told HT on Friday that he had received a communication from the
CPIO, ministry of home affairs that his application was transferred to the PMO
on May 23, 2015. But the PMO has failed to give the requested information
within the stipulated 30 days, as per the RTI Act, 2005. "It is astonishing
that the top most public authority of the country failed to comply with the
provision of transparency of law," he added.
The only one
response that was received from the PMO was dated July 3, 2015, which mentioned
that the matter was under process and a suitable response would be sent as soon
as the inputs were received from concerned unit(s)/section(s) in the office.
(HT is in possession of copies of the communications exchanged between Anand
and New Delhi: PMO and home ministry.)
Anand
referred to a circular (No. 1/8/2012-IR) of the government of India, dated
April 3, 2013, office memo of even number dated 11.9.2012, advising the public
authorities to proactively disclose the details of all foreign and domestic
official tours of minister(s) and officials of the rank of joint secretary to
the government of India and above and heads of departments.
That order
had also said that it had been brought to the notice of this department that
public authorities were receiving RTI applications frequently asking for
details of the official tours undertaken by the ministers and other officials
of ministries/departments concerned.
Disappointed
with the manner in which the RTI Act was being 'diluted', Anand said, despite
this, there was no response from PMO till now, which violated the very spirit
of the transparency law and was also in complete disregard to government's own
circulars and office memos.
He asserted
that now the PMO should supply information 'free of cost', as they had failed
to comply with the prescribed time limit of 30 days under section 7(6) of RTI
Act, 2005 that mandated "where public authority fails to comply with the
time limit of 30 days information shall be provided to applicant free of
cost".
The
application said he would wait for a few days and if he did not receive
complete information than he would file a complaint against PIO of the PMO to
the appropriate authority.
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