RIGHT TO INFORMATION - 2009 - Indian Social Institute

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a writ petition filed by Meraj Khan, Justice Rakesh Tiwari observed, "Admittedly, right of a person under RTI Act cannot be protected beyond the provisions of law. The petitioner can only seek information or may be provided the documents which are permissible to be provided under the law or have not been weeded out as in the present case." The petitioner claims to be a meritorious student and she had obtained 57 per cent marks in High School examination 2008. She had moved the application under RTI Act for providing photocopy of answer copies to her. The grievance of the petitioner was that she had not been provided photocopy of the answer copies of her High School examination as requested by her. She also requested to provide information on other subjects in which she had appeared. The state counsel submitted that the answer copies of the Board examinations were weeded out after six months of the declaration of the result. Since the petitioner had not applied for scrutiny within the prescribed time, her copies have been weeded out. The application dated November 11, 2008 appears to be bogus as the marks obtained by her were available to her marksheet, observed the court. (Times of India 21/2/09) RTI Act (Editorial) It is an instance that reveals the tangible gap between a Government’s professed claim and real position regarding a powerful tool to achieve transparency. The state of the Right to Information Act in Assam is distressing and disappointing for all who subscribe to the idea of probity in public affairs. More unfortunate are those who have been trying to use the Act to acquire much needed information from Government or Government funded authorities. A recent assessment carried out by an RTI activist from Assam has pointed out that a number of districts including Dibrugarh, Karbi Anglong, Kamrup and Nalbari have not witnessed positive developments. Many of the offices in the district and sub-divisional levels do not identify the Pub lic Information Officers. As a result, people do not have the knowledge and ready access to many functionaries who are authorised to deal with applicants. In many offices, PIOs have shown scant regard to the important Act, and in other cases they have feigned ignorance of the Act. According to some applicants, they have received subtle threats after they had submitted RTI applications. It is now clear that that a section of the public, whose wrongdoings stand to be exposed have started to put pressure on RTI users. The woes of applicants would include long delays in the appeal process, a task made even more difficult by bureaucratic hurdles. The present situation makes it amply clear that the Government has not taken the issue of RTI with due seriousness - why else would the State Information Commission function with just one Commissioner There have been reports that with absence of strong penalties for erring officials vis-a-vis the RTI Act, government offices have not bothered to take the applications seriously. It has been pointed out that unlike in some other States, most PIOs who have failed to dispense information within the stipulated period have not been censured or penalised. With due sympathy to the PIOs and APIOs, it has to be stated that some of them have not received proper training, and hence their inability to perform their functions. Some officers admit that they do not possess the requisite infrastructure and funds essential to fulfil the needs of RTI applicants. RTI users and activists, already feeling frustrated, believe that unless the issue gains crucial support from civil society, the Act’s ideal of ushering transparency would remain a distant dream. (Assam Tribune 23/2/09) Need for printing RTI in all languages underscored (1) HYDERABAD: National Commission for Backward Classes chairperson S. Ratnavel Pandian has underscored the need for printing and publicising the Right to Information Act in all regional languages. The RTI should be translated in all regional languages and the definitions/terms of the Act should be comprehensively explained. “The rules governing the Act are unfortunately not printed in regional languages. People from weaker and downtrodden sections are neither aware of the RTI nor provisions related to it,” he said. He was speaking at a meeting on “Effective use of Right to Information for better India – The role of intellectuals” organised by the All-India Conference of Intellectuals here on Sunday. Authorities were obliged to inform people that RTI would help them understand actions of the government. Haryana Governor A.R. Kidwai said the Act would go a long way in introducing transparency. It would enable people to know the reasons for the government decisions and assess whether they were right. Former Union Minister Bhishma Narain Singh said information was like oxygen to society and people, the ultimate beneficiaries, were entitled to know the issues. Legislative Council Chairman D. Chakrapani, AICOI secretary-general P.N. Sarma and AP and Karnataka State convenor K.M. Shivashankaracharya spoke. Later, National Intellectual Honour awards-2008 were presented to Justice Pandian, Dr. Chakrapani, noted musician Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, National Textiles Corporation CMD K. Ramachandran Pillai, AP Planning Board vice-chairman D. Swaminathan, former IG
G. Ramachandra Reddy, State Official Language Commission chairman A.B.K. Prasad and Kasani Gnaneshwar, MLC. (The Hindu 23/2/09) SC judges ready to declare assets, they tell Delhi High Court (1) NEW DELHI: Supreme Court judges are willing to make public their assets, but will not do so until a fresh law is enacted to address their fears of misuse of the information they will be required to put in the public domain. The apex court on Tuesday told the Delhi High Court that its judges "are not opposed to declaring their assets", but qualified that with the assertion that RTI Act does not provide the mechanism or law under which they could make the declaration. The response, while seeming to indulge the growing demand from within and outside to apply the transparency norms to judges, is clearly tilted in favour of status quoists on the Bench. SC was widely seen as reluctant to apply the transparency norms to itself when it moved the HC against an order by the Central Information Commission passed under the RTI Act asking SC to disclose whether the judges had been scrupulously following their own informal resolution of 1997 and declaring assets regularly to the Chief Justice of India (CJI). The SC has addressed the perception by saying that its appeal against the CIC's order was not intended to raise technical objections to avoid declaring assets of judges, but had to do with a "fundamental question of law and principle with regard to the scope and applicability" of RTI Act. "Having said that, it must also be clarified that judges of the SC are not opposed to declaring their assets provided that such declarations are made in accordance with the due procedure laid down by a law," the court said. The stance that the RTI Act was not applicable to judges and that the CJI was not a public authority as defined under the transparency law comes through clearly. The earlier argument was that the CJI not being a public authority under the RTI Act, the declarations made to him by judges under the informal resolution of 1997 could not be said to be information under the public domain, hence available to be accessed by general public with the help of provisions of the right to information law. The present stand before the HC means that SC judges were willing to declare their assets provided a separate mechanism was made available through legislative process by Parliament, which the judges desired must have following provisions: * The authority to which the declaration would have to be made* The form in which the declaration would have to be made along with clear definition of what constituted `assets'* Proper safeguards, checks and balances to prevent misuse of the information which would be made available on judges' assetsThe rest of the arguments advanced by the SC was nothing but its already known view — how the information on judges assets was in private domain and non-applicability of the RTI Act to it. It said, "The voluntary declarations given by the judges cannot be said to be information in public domain. Under the Act, the right to information is in respect of information which is required to be held by a public authority under the provisions of law. In the instant case, there is no legal or constitutional requirement for filing the declarations and as such, the declarations filed, if any, cannot be the subject matter of the Act." The informal resolution of May 7, 1997, under which the judges made voluntary declaration, has no force of law. Hence, the information with the CJI about the assets of judges could not be accessed under RTI Act as it was not information held by a public authority under any law, the SC said. Moreover, it said the information on assets available with the CJI was "purely and simply" personal information, which under the RTI Act is specifically exempt from disclosure. (Times of India 25/2/09) Authorities reluctant to disclose info under RTI Act: CIC (1) New Delhi, February 26, <strong>2009</strong>: Three years after implementation of the RTI Act, many public authorities are still “reluctant” to disclose information, the Central Information Commission has said and demanded enhanced manpower for effective compliance of the Act. Many organisations are yet to comply with Section 4, a mandatory requirement under which public authorities are liable to disclose information and make it accessible for public, Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said. “There is lack of commitment from public authorities. Information Commissioners across the country have not been able to ensure its implementation. Many state and Central government affiliated organisations are reluctant in abiding by Section 4,” he told PTI. According to Section 4 of the RTI Act, public authorities shall maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and form which facilitate the RTI Act. They should ensure that all records, which are appropriate to be computerised, are within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access too such records is facilitated. The CIC has also written a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office in order to draw its attention towards various factors responsible for under compliance of the Act. (Hindustan Times 26/2/09)
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Page 13 and 14: authority also. Till date many of t
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Page 25 and 26: Mumbai (PTI): With over 4.16 lakh a
Page 27 and 28: BANGALORE: Director-General and Ins
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Page 57 and 58: NEW DELHI: A recent report on the R
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Aimed at highlighting the common ma
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Act from Kanpur University for the
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Satellite Town to the Basaveshwara
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accountability in NGOs. Let us see
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SC will challenge Delhi HC order pu
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Warning against misusing RTI Act to
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Nagaland, Arunchal Pradesh, Orissa
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Information Commissioners ranked by
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was a bit better, which meant out o
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transparent, inclusive and particip
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others, I & PR director Mr BP Mohan
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organisations but they will be requ
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information on the creche from the
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