September 28th is an International Right to know day celebrated since
2002 in view of raising awareness of RTI. A day when freedom of information
(FOI) regulators and advocates get together to promote access and raise
awareness of access to information. An article to focus facts and figures about
RTI in India.
The RTI Act
2005 was enacted with a view to bring in the utmost transparency and
accountability in every public administrative work and to set the procedures
for giving the citizens their right to information. While projecting that RTI will strengthen democracy,
thing remained unattended that “why country like India whose democracy is
largest in world, people has to use weapon like RTI to seek the information?” Basically it’s a fundamental right. The purpose of this article is to unearth the
ground level facts about so called gift of RTI to peoples by government.
TRANSPARANCY IS SOUL OF
DEMOCRACY:
Information
disclosure in India was restricted by ‘official secret act 1923’ and was the
need of British Government. On auspicious day of 15th August 1947,
we freed from British ruling. Actually on the same day this secret act has to keep
under lock and key. As said ‘Transparency is soul of democracy’; from the day
of Independence everything about the Governance must be open to all. Unfortunately
citizens of India waited till 2002. We get rid of from secret act as “Freedom
of Information act” came into picture. Till then democracy in India is similar
to “Body without Soul”.
link for DNA :
WHAT CAUSES DEMAND OF RTI:
Being fundamental
right, to make readily available information to all citizens is a duty of
Government. Unfortunately ground reality differs. In democracy politicians and
bureaucrats are meant for people’s service. All their activities must be for people’s beneficiary. But as democracy progress the politicians and
bureaucracy make their mind that the Govt. is firstly for them and the citizens
comes.
Peoples get fed
up with the un-democratic approach of pillars of democracy. Either you complain
/write to Grampanchayat secretary or to
PM/president, to get the reply is turning as nightmare. Secrecy act is used as
a shield by pillars to pull down their scams, illegal activities, vested
benefits of post and power. As mountain of such thing kept on rising situation
becomes perturbing and with that citizens starts agitation. What is projected
that “RTI is government gift”is a myth; actually it’s a success of agitation
like crusader Anna Hazare.
RTI turning as Right to Rejection:
RTI means Right To Information but now a days RTI turn as Right To Rejection.
Even though the
RTI act is brought in action, still the mentality of bureaucracy is favoring
non disclosure of information only. No doubt,
initially they have fear of act but as years progress and as some of the high
level political authorities’ deliberate negative comment of RTI, bureaucracy
got rid from fear of law and they engaged in finding the different loop holes
in RTI process. The current ground level reality is that with virtue of
increasing negative mentality RTI turning as a Right To Rejection. Most of the time the game of throwing the
ball in others court is played by administrators. The comment of outgoing RTI Commissioner Mr.
Gandhi is an eye opener; he said that “RTI act is under threat and might become
irrelevant in next 5 years.” Off course
no one likes it but fact is that bureaucracy and politicians already started laying
foundation in that direction.
MISLEADING CAMPAIGN THREAT TO
RTI:
‘Mostly information
seek under RTI is used for blackmailing’, such campaign is in full fledge. Some
of the organizations claim that they had prepared list of such RTI activist.
The recent example of this is claim made by BMC. If so is the case, question
remain unanswered why such administration kept silent instead of any action.
Actually every
coin has two sides. The side which is projected seems to be the true. Same is the case for RTI. . All that misleading projection doesn’t have
any data. Actually fact is different and
always depends upon the intension of authority –person who, how and why
projecting? Whether to show which side
of coin is totally in hand of coin holder. Similarly most of the authorities
are on side to show misuse of RTI. Ok,
take it as a granted. But while doing
so, administrations must aware of the fact that, blackmailing is possible only
then if info revealed had some irregular, vested interest activity. Its request to all those who shown keen
interest (vested?) in misleading campaign that don’t underestimate the success
stories of RTI. (Aadarsh , 2G, CWG like scams)
Some possible remedies:
·
To avoid so called blackmailing all
administrations should come forward to upload all relevant information on its
website. Once information is open to all, no question of blackmail arises.
·
To get rid of wastage of valuable time of
bureaucracy in rendering same info several times, at the first stroke the
demanded info must be uploading on respective website.
·
To meet the object of RTI, information should be
readily supply to citizens instead of demand of same.
·
ONLINE PORTAL for RTI application, reply of same
can curb misuse of it.
Sudhir
L. Dani . Belapur
danisudhir@gmail.com (for feedback )
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