Economic Times: New Delhi: Tuesday,
June 28, 2016.
Ending a
year-long impasse between the citizens and the government, the Central
Information Commission has given a pro-disclosure order and directed the rural
development ministry to divulge Cabinet note, file notings and all government
communication on the controversial Land Acquisition Ordinance under the Right
to Information (RTI) Act.
The
transparency watchdog had clubbed cases on a single day of applicants who had
sought information from on the Land Ordinance. In separate applications, RTI
activist Venkatesh Nayak and journalist Chitrangada Choudhury had sought copies
of Cabinet note, file notings and all communication within the government
leading up to the promulgation of the controversial Ordinance, which has now
lapsed. Though the department of land resources under rural development
ministry was the nodal agency for the move, it had denied information saying it
held no such records.
Hearing the
plea of the applicants last week , Information Commissioner Sudhir Bhargava
directed the government to provide the information. "The Commission after
hearing the submissions of the complainant and perusing the records, notes that
the information sought has not been provided by the respondent to the
complainant. Further, as per the Legislative Department, the records relating
to the promulgation of the said Ordinance would be available with the
Department of Land Resources. In view of this, the Commission directs the
respondent to provide information sought to the complainant within four
weeks," Bhargava said in his order.
The Ordinance
had posed the first political test for the Narendra Modi government with the
Opposition questioning the urgency. Data accessed under RTI had also shown that
only about 8% of the stalled projects in India were because of land acquisition
issues. Though the Ordinance has lapsed its contents are before Parliament in
the form of a Bill to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013. The Bill is being
deliberated upon by a joint committee of Parliament chaired by BJP MP S S
Ahluwalia.
The RTI
applications were transferred within the government multiple times. Nayak had
filed his RTI application in President's Secretariat as the President had
signed on the Ordinance. The application was transferred to department of land
resources which said it held no information and transferred it to legislative
department and back to the President's Secretariat. The legislative department
said in its RTI reply that department of land resources holds the information.
Following this, CIC has directed the department of land resources to disclose
the requisite information.
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