Moneylife: Pune: Friday, December 22, 2017.
The Right to
Information (RTI) Act extensively used by citizens to procure information is
indeed making political party members uncomfortable. This was starkly evident
at Tuesday’s Winter Session of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in Nagpur,
where all the members across party lines were unanimous in supporting a Shiv
Sena member’s contention that RTI users are blackmailers and action must be
taken against them. The attempt failed.
The main
accusation of Pratap Sarnaik, the Shiv Sena member of Legislative Assembly
(MLA) from Thane was that RTI activists have opened ‘corporate offices’ through
such extortion. He charged that instead of solving peoples’ problems, helping
government officials and exposing corrupt officers, RTI activists indulge in
extortion in the name of transparency. This led to much enthusiasm amongst
members of all political parties present in the Assembly with several voicing
their experiences of extortion by RTI activists. They said a high percentage of
RTI users indulge in blackmail.
Krishna
Khopde, a member from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stated that RTI activists
procure information and then threaten contractors and government officials, by
raising questions about decisions, policies and so on. However, when a
‘settlement’ is done between the two parties, they withdraw their objections.
Sarnaik, whose family is one of the topmost builders and developers from Thane,
demanded severe action against such activists through an enactment.
Another MLA
from BJP, Raj Purohit claimed that he knew 600 such RTI activists who indulge
in extortion and blackmailing and was ready to provide their names. However, State Minister for Home, Ranjit
Patil quelled the issue by stating that, on a complaint, action should be taken
against any individual who misuses any law and not only RTI.
While the
Minister’s statement might trivialise the allegations made by the MLAs, the
fact is, the signs are dangerous.
Pune-based
RTI activist, Vijay Kumbhar, who was grilled by ABP Majha on this issue on
Wednesday, says, “There has been cases where political parties have
surreptitiously brought in proposals for amendments or circulars or government
resolutions (GRs). Hence, all of us should raise our voices against
Maharashtra’s leaders from all political parties, who are condemning the entire
RTI fraternity. The fact is, the RTI Act has empowered every citizen and many
are using it as a tool for justice and transparency. This is rattling the
political and bureaucratic set up as they are used to ‘official secrecy’ for
decades to keep information under wraps. They are now finding ways and means to
dilute the power of this transparency law.”
Kumbhar
reiterates, “Definitely action should be taken against any RTI users who uses
it for extortion or blackmail and the official or political leaders should come
forward with an official complaint and take action against such people.”
Time and
again RTI experts across the country have been appealing for public authorities
to abide by the suo motu disclosures, which are mandatory under Section 4 of
the RTI Act. At regular intervals, the Department of Personnel and Training
(DoPT), which is instrumental in implementing the RTI Act has sent out
circulars to the public authorities to put all information, mentioned in
Section 4, in public domain through their respective websites. There are
several CIC decisions to this effect.
All this will
automatically ensure minimisation of blackmailing or extortion as the
information will be accessible to everyone at the click of the mouse and public
information officers (PIOs) will not be overburdened with answering RTI
requests under Section 6. However, the response is pathetic, despite the RTI
Act now being 12 years old.
“This
attitude,” says Kumbhar, “shows that government officials have something to
hide, perhaps at the behest of their political bosses. Complete commitment by
public authorities to Section 4 disclosure will eliminate any blackmailing,
which by the way is at a very small percentage’’
One of the
several circulars by DoPT this one in 2015, makes matters clear for the
central and state public authorities. Perhaps, leaders who are maligning RTI
users could well put pressure on all government departments to be transparent,
by asking them to follow these norms. Following is the circular from DoPT to
all public authorities on 29 June 2015:
All the
details of the public authority may be uploaded on its website. Access to
information should be made user-friendly for which appropriate information
technology infrastructure should be suitably designed, developed and
operationalised
All the training
modules for professional upgradation of employees should incorporate matter
relating to the virtues of transparency and open government and RTI law
In order to
minimise the burden of servicing RTI applications, the public authorities with
high public dealing should put in place an effective system to redress the
grievances of affected persons.
In order to
reduce the number of RTI applications relating to service matters, the
information relating to recruitment, promotion and transfers should be brought
into public domain properly.
The retention
and maintenance of specific documents for specified duration should be clearly
spelt by each public authority in respect of its documents.
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