The Live Mirror: National: Saturday, August 25, 2018.
Madabhushi
Sridhar Acharyulu, the Central Information Commissioner, has a different take
on the amendment to the Right to Information Act, 2005. According to the CIC,
any amendment to the existing act would only weaken it, he said on Thursday.
During a
lecture at the session on RTI Act- Challenges and Opportunities Acharyulu threw
more light on the matter at the Press Club in Hyderabad’s Somajiguda. He also
launched youRTI.in portal in the event which was organised jointly by Media
Education Foundation India (MEFI) and an NGO Yugantar.
Elaborating
on the issue, Acharyulu said that in case of any amendment to the act in
particular would actually impact Central Information Commission’s autonomy and
would in way curb citizen’s access to valuable information. That the amendment
would also affect the tenure of the information commissioners was mentioned by
CIC.
Reminding all
that RTI Act is an important tool that ensures Freedom of Speech, Acharyulu
also warned the citizens to study the subject thoroughly so that the
information requests are not denied by the authorities. Concerns about file
disappearing were also raised by him and he admitted the fact there is no
method to handle the issue.
However,
Media Education Foundation India’s chairman though criticised both Andhra
Pradesh and Telengana governments for the ignoring the RTI even after the High
Court passed strictures about the act.
Sushil
Kambampati, the founder of the portal yourRTI.in which was launched on Friday,
stated that right to privacy and right to information are conflicting in
nature. Kambampati justified that public officials shouldn’t have any privacy
concern as they are merely doing official duties. The newly launched portal
will help users to put forward their queries maintaining their anonymity with a
list of Public Information Officers in place.