TRIPURAINFO: Agartala: Tuesday, 05 September 2023.
The RTI Act-2005 which had been enacted to facilitate outflow of information to members of public is fast becoming a non-existent law because of motivated and recalcitrant officials of the state government. What is most astonishing is that the law department of the state government, supposed to be custodian of law and constitution in the discharge of governmental work, is guilty of the same offence.
Nothing illustrates the point better than the treatment meted out to a RTI query made by illegally retrenched (10,323) teacher Santanu Bhattacharjee. It was on July 19 that Santanu had filed his RTI query asking for information about the procedure for dismissing or retrenching from service any employee in the wake of a court judgment. He wanted to know the specific procedure that needed to be followed by the government. But even today the under secretary, law Sankha Subhra Datta who is the state public information officer (SPIO) of the law department has not filed the reply which, according to provisions in RTI Act, needs to be given within a period of one month.
Out of frustration as well as to protect his legal right Santanu Bhattacharjee has already filed a complaint with the state information commission against the law department and the state public information officer (SPIO) of law department Sankha Shubhra Datta. The matter is likely to come up for hearing soon. Commenting on the issue Santanu said that “this is really strange that at a time when the chief minister Dr Manik Saha and minister like Sushanta Chowdhury are trying to bring more transparency in the administration, the law department is brazenly violating the RTI Act passed by the government of India.” Santanu described this as a ‘conspiracy’ and said that, if necessary, he will go up to any extent to secure his legal right to information.
The RTI Act-2005 which had been enacted to facilitate outflow of information to members of public is fast becoming a non-existent law because of motivated and recalcitrant officials of the state government. What is most astonishing is that the law department of the state government, supposed to be custodian of law and constitution in the discharge of governmental work, is guilty of the same offence.
Nothing illustrates the point better than the treatment meted out to a RTI query made by illegally retrenched (10,323) teacher Santanu Bhattacharjee. It was on July 19 that Santanu had filed his RTI query asking for information about the procedure for dismissing or retrenching from service any employee in the wake of a court judgment. He wanted to know the specific procedure that needed to be followed by the government. But even today the under secretary, law Sankha Subhra Datta who is the state public information officer (SPIO) of the law department has not filed the reply which, according to provisions in RTI Act, needs to be given within a period of one month.
Out of frustration as well as to protect his legal right Santanu Bhattacharjee has already filed a complaint with the state information commission against the law department and the state public information officer (SPIO) of law department Sankha Shubhra Datta. The matter is likely to come up for hearing soon. Commenting on the issue Santanu said that “this is really strange that at a time when the chief minister Dr Manik Saha and minister like Sushanta Chowdhury are trying to bring more transparency in the administration, the law department is brazenly violating the RTI Act passed by the government of India.” Santanu described this as a ‘conspiracy’ and said that, if necessary, he will go up to any extent to secure his legal right to information.
.JPG)
.JPG)
