Economic Times: New Delhi: Thursday, December 07, 2017.
Union
minister Jitendra Singh today threw up an idea for developing a system under
which RTI applications would be filed only by those who had a link with the
subject matter of the case, triggering an outcry from activists.
Addressing
the 12th annual convention of the Central Information Commission here, Singh
said this could help bring down the number of cases before the CIC.
The Minister
of State in the Prime Minister's Office and for Personnel and Training
clarified that he was not suggesting a new method, but urging the gathering to
ponder over how to deal with unnecessary applications.
His remarks
were opposed by a group of RTI activists, who said they "strongly
disagreed" with the suggestion.
"Any
move to introduce conditions to restrict RTI applications to only those issues
on which a person is directly connected (with) will not just be illegal but
will also empower PIOs to arbitrarily reject any RTI application on the pretext
that it does not relate to the information seeker," the National Campaign
for Peoples' Right to Information said in a statement.
The right to
information, it said, was a fundamental one.
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