Hindu Business Line: Kochi: Saturday, July 16, 2016.
“We never
expected this from a Left government,” says D.B. Binu, a leading
right-to-information (RTI) activist, human rights lawyer and general secretary
of Kerala RTI Federation.
He was
commenting on the Pinarayi Vijayan Government’s refusal to reveal the
controversial Cabinet decisions taken by the previous Oommen Chandy Government.
“It was the
furore over these decisions that had mainly helped the Left Democratic Front to
win the May 16 Assembly election and come to power,” he told BusinessLine on
Friday. “The LDF used these decisions, some of which favoured crony businessmen
and companies, to buttress its allegations of corruption against the Chandy
Government during the campaign.”
On an RTI
appeal by Binu, the chief State information commissioner had last fortnight
ordered the government to give out the information sought by him on the
controversial decisions made by the Chandy Cabinet. Binu had to go in appeal to
the CIC after the government had earlier refused to divulge the information he
had sought.
The CIC asked
the government to reply to Binu’s RTI questions within ten days and also asked
to consider uploading the decisions taken at future Cabinet meetings on the
government websites. But, the government has refused and told the State
Information Commission that it is going to challenge the CIC directive in the
High Court.
“The LDF
government, like most other state governments in the country, is employing this
time-tested strategy to defeat the spirit of the Right to Information Act,”
Binu said. “If it gets a stay from the High Court, the issue will remain in the
courts for several years and the government can continue to keep its key
decisions from the public eye.” The LDF government was denying the information
on the previous government’s decisions fearing that it would have to reveal its
own future decisions too. Binu noted that one of the first decisions of the
Pinarayi Government was to scrap the decades-old practice of Chief Ministers
briefing the media on the decisions taken by the Cabinet each time it met.
He pointed
out that the RTI Act has not exempted Cabinet decisions. Shailesh Gandhi, a
former member of the Central Information Commission had reiterated this in one
of his decisions. Binu said
“It is
strange that the same LDF which had, while in Opposition, intensely criticised
the former UDF Government’s refusal to reveal the content of the Cabinet
decisions, is resorting to the same trick,” Binu said. “Right or Left, all
governments want to hide from the people important decisions that affect the
people. It’s really sad that the LDF is colluding with others to blunt such an
important people’s weapon as the RTI.”
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