Times
of India: New Delhi: Sunday, 22 November 2015.
RTI activists
Aruna Roy, Shailesh Gandhi, Prashant Bhushan and others have demanded that the
Delhi government place the Delhi Lokpal and the Service Delivery Amendment bill
in the public domain. In a letter to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal the activists
have expressed concern at the lack of transparency and public consultation
related to the proposed legislations.
"While
we welcome the move of the Delhi government to bring these crucial legislations
to the Delhi Assembly for consideration and passage, however, we are deeply
concerned to note that the government has not made public the text of either of
these two bills. The non-availability of the proposed legislations in the
public domain has prevented meaningful debate on the detailed provisions of the
bills. Further, there have been no public consultations, wherein comments or
suggestions of the people of Delhi who are going to be deeply impacted by the
passage of these legislations, have been sought,'' the letter said.
This manner
of legislating important laws undermines people's democratic right to know and
participate in the legislative process and prevents public scrutiny of the
provisions of proposed bills, the activists said. "We had hoped that given
Aam Adami Party's electoral promises of participatory governance and Swaraj,
the AAP government will provide substantive opportunities for peoples' participation
in drafting legislations,'' the latter said highlighting that both proposed
laws were critical to provide a comprehensive legislative framework in Delhi to
tackle corruption and redress grievances of people. The letter was signed by
Anjali Bharadwaj, Nikhil Dey, Amrita Johri, Venkatesh Nayak among others.
.JPG)
.JPG)
