The News Minute: National: Thursday, June 21, 2018.
Even as news
of the Central Government seeking to amend the Right to Information Act 2005
has activists worried, a Tamil Nadu-based RTI activist has been asked to prove
his Indian citizenship for a reply to his query.
Jayaraman
Venkatesan had filed an RTI query with the Health Department, seeking answers
on the attendance of housekeeping staff at Dharmapuri Medical College.
According to
a Governance Now report in November 2017, there were reports of irregularities
in the outsourcing of security and housekeeping services in as many as 37
government hospitals and 20 medical colleges affiliated to the Directorate of
Medical Education.
Speaking to
TNM, Jayaraman of Arappor Iyakkam, says, “I had filed an RTI with Dharmapuri
Medical College regarding attendance of housekeeping and security staff. The
PIO (Press Information Officer) replied saying that I have not attached proof
of being an Indian citizen. Therefore he has returned the entire petition in
full. It is not mandatory. The practice in the state is that you declare that
you’re an Indian citizen. The law says you have to provide information to
Indian citizens only. Only Indian citizens can access the information. As long
as you declare that you’re an Indian citizen, the standard practise has been
that the government provides the information. They do not reject on these
flimsy grounds. Even if someone wants to technically say that proof must be
attached, they must have asked for it. He should not have returned the entire
petition in original, rejecting the application. That is unwarranted.”
Jayaraman
says that this nitpicking, however, is not new, “We have encountered this
earlier as well and had taken up the issue with the Health Secretary who had
said that he would make sure people don’t reject information on such flimsy
grounds. He did pass on the information to the PIOs telling them not to reject
petitions on these grounds. In spite of it, they are basically finding
innovative ways to reject information.”
He further
went on to say, “Lot of RTIs are being filed which are then being rejected on
the basis of false technical reasons. For example, when we ask for purchase
orders, they reject our request claiming ‘commercial confidence and trade
secrets’. We are seeking purchase order of the government for which public
money is being paid to the contractor to do public work. That is government
record. In these ways they are finding different methods to delay information.”
Jayaraman
blames the State Information Commission (SIC) for a lot of these delays. The
SIC is tasked with ensuring the implementation of the RTI Act in the state.
Making the SIC body independent would provide a solution to the issue,
according to Jayaraman.
“The State
Information Commission is not working properly. It is biased; they don’t want
to share information. This is the difficulty we are facing. Even if the appeals
and cases go to SIC, we have a very non functional body. Unless it is made
functional and reasonably independent, nothing will change. The information of
the applicant should not be shared with a third party. In one case of
encroachment, the tehsildar gave the contact information of the applicant to
the builders who then called us to enquire about whether we have filed RTI. The
SIC needs to do its duty and monitor all of this,” he said.
He further
added that public authorities are not maintaining duly catalogued and indexed
records and posting them online, as per Section 4 of the RTI.
“Once they
voluntarily post it, the number of RTIs will decrease. They would not have the
same amount of workload since different people may be asking for the same
information.”
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