The Hindu: Kochi: Monday, November 27, 2017.
An RTI
activist has approached the State Information Commission seeking a directive to
provide copies of documents related to the implementation of various projects
by the State government.
The directive
was sought on a complaint filed against the refusal of the State Public
Information Officer to provide information on the projects.
In his
complaint, D.B. Binu, RTI activist, said the Information and Public Relations
Department had published a ‘progress report of Pinarayi Vijayan Government’ for
the year 2016-17. The report, released by the Chief Minister, was available on
the official website of the government. The report had mentioned the action
plan for as many as 35 projects. Mr. Binu had sought information from the
government in public interest.
The
petitioner said the Information Officer had failed to furnish specific
information on the projects.
“The officer
had refused to provide information including details of implementation of 35
projects; the money spent on them; unspent money, and funds mobilised under
each project,” he added. According to him, the Information Officer was
duty-bound to provide information, and his failure to do so is a clear
violation of the mandatory provisions of the RTI Act.
Voluntary
disclosure
Mr. Binu
pointed out that the Central Information Commission had made it clear that the
objective of the RTI Act was to encourage voluntary disclosure of information
which could obviate the need for filing RTI applications. For the record, the
commission had directed all authorities to publish records as enumerated under
Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act. It had also recommended that an archive be
developed to include digitized records and information collected from various
sources, to reduce the number of RTI applications.
.JPG)
.JPG)
