The Hindu: Hyderabad: Friday, August 24, 2018.
The autonomy
of Information Commission will also be affected, says Sridhar Acharyulu
The Central
Information Commissioner, Madabhushi Sridhar Acharyulu, on Thursday said the
proposed amendment to the Right to Information Act, 2005 would weaken it.
Mr. Acharyulu
was speaking at a session on ‘RTI Act- Challenges and Opportunities’ at Press
Club at Somajiguda where he also launched the youRTI.in portal. The event was
jointly organised by Yugantar, an NGO, and Media Education Foundation India
(MEFI).
The CIC said
if the amendments were made to the existing RTI Act, there was a likelihood
that they would adversely affect the autonomy of the Information Commission and
impact citizen’s access to information. He also said the amendments would
impact the tenure of information commissioners at the State and Central level.
Stating that
the RTI Act was important to ensure freedom of speech, Mr. Acharyulu
underscored that those filing RTI queries should research the subject well to
ensure that the information requests are not denied. He expressed concerns over
instances in which files have ‘disappeared’ from government departments and
observed that there was no procedure to tackle the issue. Speaking at the
event, MEFI chairman K. Srinivas Reddy criticised the governments of Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana for their negligence of RTI despite strictures passed by
the High Court.
Sushil
Kambampati, youRTI.in founder, said there was no conflict between right to
privacy and right to information as public officials should have no expectation
of privacy when they are carrying out their official duties.
The youRTI.in
portal enables users to port RTI queries anonymously. A list of Public
Information Officers is also available on the portal.
.JPG)
.JPG)
