Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Sunday, February 04, 2018.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has asked the Election Commission (EC) to launch a
special drive to dispose of around 2,000 Right to Information (RTI) queries and
first appeals awaiting a response for a long time.
The
directions of the CIC come in response to appeals filed by several appellants
whose RTI queries and first appeals filed with the EC were not answered.
Among the
appellants is Haryana-based activist Harinder Dhingra who had sought a copy of
the election affidavit filed by state minister Rao Narbir Singh, but it was
never given.
During the
hearing, the EC told the CIC it had not received any RTI query filed on the
online RTI portal that was launched by the government of India in 2013.
Even though
the EC has been listed in the online RTI portal, it claimed that it was not
receiving any RTIs filed by the public. The backlog of these ‘unclaimed’ RTI
queries has reached 2,000 in number.
The
department of personnel and training (DoPT), which manages the online RTI
portal, had given training to the representatives of the EC to answer the RTI
queries filed online. However, the panel said it never gave its consent to the
DoPT that it was ready to answer the RTIs filed online.
“Due to
communication gap, the DoPT presumed that the Election Commission is ready to
allow filing of RTI by public on their online RTI portal and gave Election
Commission’s link on their website,” the EC said.
Building own
RTI portel: EC
The EC
further said that being an autonomous body, it was building its own online RTI
portal where public would be able to file RTI queries. It said it had requested
the DoPT to hand them the PDF copies of all RTI queries that were intended to
be filed with the EC but were never received.
However, the
CIC observed that the EC has not fixed any deadline to build their own RTI
portal and asked it to submit the latest developments of the same.
The CIC
observed that despite claiming to have not received RTIs filed online by the
public, the EC took no steps to issue a notice asking people to not file RTIs
on the online RTI portal.
It further
asked the EC to ensure disposal of the pending RTI queries and first appeals by
launching a special drive, as non-disposal of the RTI in time-bound manner
attracts penal proceedings under the RTI Act.
The CIC
further asked the EC to give the information sought by Dhingra within 30 days.
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