Firstpost: Mumbai: Tuesday, August 21, 2018.
Information
about an ecological report on the Western Ghats prepared by a panel led by
noted expert Madhav Gadgil was initially denied under the RTI by the central
government citing economic interests of the concerned states, a former Central
Information Commissioner (CIC) said on Monday.
Gadgil had
headed the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) set up by the Union
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). In its 2011 report, the panel had
recommended classifying several areas of the Western Ghats as ecologically
sensitive.
The
seven-year-old report has come into limelight following devastating floods in
Kerala, after Gadgil said last week that it was a man-made disaster as illegal
constructions on river beds and unauthorised stone quarrying in the southern
state contributed to the calamity.
Speaking to
PTI, former Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said on Monday
that he had asked the MoEF to make the report public in an order passed on 9
April, 2012.
Gandhi said
the order followed a second appeal filed by a Right to Information (RTI)
applicant in 2012.
The former
CIC said he had also asked the MoEF at that time to put in public domain all
such reports set up by the government using taxpayers' money.
G Krishnan, a
resident of Ernakulam in Kerala, had filed an RTI with the MoEF in September
2011 to obtain a summary of the report but the plea was denied by the Public
Information Officer (PIO) and the First Appellate Authority citing sections 8
and 9 of the RTI Act.
The two
sections deal with circumstances under which information asked in an RTI plea
can be denied.
Krishnan then
filed a second appeal and Gandhi ordered that the applicant be given the report
summary under section 4 of the RTI Act.
Gandhi's
order stated that "citizens and civil society, who are actively pursuing
the objective of protecting the bio-diversity of ecologically sensitive
regions, flora, fauna and endangered species, now have access to information
which allows them to obtain a true picture of our ecosystem."
The union
government, however, challenged the CIC order in the Delhi High Court but its
plea was rejected by Justice Vipin Sanghi in an order passed on 17 May, 2012.
The Centre
had subsequently set up another panel under space scientist K Kasturirangan,
which watered down the environmental regulations regime proposed in the Gadgil
report.