Info commissioner says some RTIs are like needless PILs

Times of India‎‎‎: Chennai: Monday, April 11, 2016.

Advising an applicant not to overload the State Information Commission (SIC) with second appeals of 'frivolous nature', a commissioner likened Right to Information (RTI) appeals to Public Interest Litigations (PIL), in an order passed recently.

The observations were made by Chirstopher Nelson, IPS (retd) while conducting an inquiry on February 17 in a case relating to social activist R Natrajan who had petitioned the Municipal Administration department and Chennai Corporation for information on an inquiry report.

Noting that as many as 263 second appeals preferred by Natarajan were pending disposal before the commission, Nelson advised him to pursue only important matters in which transparency would secure larger public interest.

To buttress this point, he quoted a Supreme Court's judgement which noted that frivolous PILs which did not have any public interest were wasting the time of courts and frustrating genuine litigants resulting in them losing faith in the judicial system.

Commissioners at the SIC said they were facing many cases where petitioners were demanding information through RTI only to harass government departments and that they 'did not serve any public purpose or expose corruption.'

"In one case, a petitioner demanded information pertaining to register records for 10 years. Also people fill many pages with questions in a single RTI. These are time-consuming for Public Information Officers (PIOs)," said a commissioner, not willing to be quoted. Since many government departments did not have dedicated staff to answer RTI queries, it affected their productivity,

Environmental activist M Salihu said comparing PIL to RTI was unwarranted. "PIL is approaching the court for a direction. RTI is to get information. Its like chalk and cheese," he said.

RTI activists say frivolous petitions are the exception, not the norm. "Officials are not willing to be transparent," said Jayaram Venkatesan, convenor of NGO Arapor Iyakkam.

Salihu said that instead of advising activists, the commission and government should digitise old documents so the public can access them easily.