Civil Aviation dept out of RTI ambit,case drags in HC

According to the state government,since the department deals with VVIPs and senior officials,any queries about this department could hamper the state security.

Consider a few questions that were asked under the RTI Act from the Civil Aviation department: What is the frequency of the maintenance of the helicopters in the state fleet? Can private individuals also take choppers on rent from the state fleet? Is there a fee taken from the VVIPs for using a chopper from the state fleet?

But wearing a cloak of secrecy,the department never replied to these queries.

In March 2008,when a query demanding the details of a probe conducted by a three-member state level committee against the anomalies in the department was asked,it was revealed that the Civil Aviation department was already taken out of the RTI purview.

“Even when the department was not exempted,we never got any replies of the RTI queries. We used to send reminders but never got a reply,” said a commission official.

Magsaysay awardee and RTI activist Sandeep Pandey filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on this issue in 2008 at the Allahabad High Court,but the state government has not yet replied.

“How can the Civil Aviation department be kept outside the RTI purview?

Is any query to the department a threat to security or a matter of high intelligence,” said Pandey.

S N Shukla,co-petitioner with Pandey in the PIL,said it is totally against the act. “Under Section 24 (IV) of the RTI,organisations that are under the security division and deal with issues of security and intelligence can be put out of the RTI cover,” said Shukla.

“The state government has given the reason that since Civil Aviation deals with VVIPs and political leaders,it is a matter of high security. But the department may be an organisation,but it is neither a security nor an intelligence organisation,” he said.

Interestingly,although the government has to announce if they remove any department from the RTI purview,the state government never announced openly about the exclusion of the Civil Aviation directorate from the RTI.

“It was only in March last year when a query was made under the RTI seeking details of a report. The complainant was told that three months ago the department had been put outside the RTI Act purview,” said Pandey.

“In June 2008,after much hue and cry,the government finally just announced a list of five exempted departments and Civil Aviation was a part of it,” said Shukla.