Journalism of Courage
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis may frequently take to Twitter to thank donors to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, but officers handling the fund seem to have little or no clue about the donors themselves. In a response to an RTI query by The Indian Express, the Public Information Officer (PIO) of
the Chief Minister’s Relief fund has said that record of the names of individual donors contributing towards the fund had not been maintained and was unavailable.
Asked to furnish a list of individuals or companies or organisations or other entities who had contributed to the fund over the last one year, the PIO chose to not divulge the same. “Donations to the Chief Minister’s Relief fund are in the form of bank statements. No record of individual donors is available with the office,” was the reply to the RTI query.
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On July 5, Fadnavis’s Twitter account had thanked the employees of the Kamthi Panchayat Samite for their donation of Rs 1.65 lakh to the fund. The CM’s Twitter handle has recorded 8 such instances.
According to former Central Information Commissioner (CIC) Shailesh Gandhi, the dichotomy between the official RTI reply and the social media outreach of the chief minister is a case of either purposeful misunderstanding or genuine non-comprehension of the question by the PIO.
“Over the last year or so such, misunderstandings seem to be on the rise in the case of RTI queries,” he said. Gandhi said his own application pertaining to grievance redressal had met with a similar stonewalling with the PIO denying the information sought saying such disclosure might harm relations with foreign governments.
“Denial of information is actually a denial of the freedom of expression,” he said.
RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar said the denial of information raised questions about the functioning of the fund itself. “The PIO should have given the information in any format they have. This is purposeful denial of information and shows the dual standards of the government when it comes to transparency,” he said.
The RTI reply, he said, insinuated that the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund might have donations from unaccounted sources.
