Man behind RTI battles for information on development

He was the man who, in association with Aruna Rai and Jean Dreze, was instrumental in drafting the revolutionary Right To Information Act...

He was the man who, in association with Aruna Rai and Jean Dreze, was instrumental in drafting the revolutionary Right To Information Act and getting a call centre for RTI constituted in Bihar. Today, Arvind Kejriwal is running from pillar to post for the last nine months with an application filed under the same Act, wanting to know the details of expenditure incurred for the development of Kaushambi area in Ghaziabad, where he resides.

In his application, submitted to Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation GMC on April 10, 2006, Kejriwal asked the GMC specific information like, the money spent on development of Kaushambi after it was taken over from the Ghaziabad Development Authority in March 2004; The number of roads constructed; agencies engaged in roads construction and the amount deposited by them. On failing to get a reply in the mandatory 30 days, Kejriwal filed his first appeal in the Municipal Corporation on June 5, but to no avail. He then went in for a second appeal with the State Information Commission SIC, on September 19.

8220;Just a week before my case came up before the Commission on November 16, the GMC provided me some irrelevant and incomplete information8217;8217; Kejriwal said. SIC sent a show-cause notice to the GMC Commissioner as to why a penalty of Rs 25,000 should not be imposed on him. The SIC directed the GMC commissioner to be present on December 18, the second hearing.

On December 18, Kejriwal was present at the Commission but the GMC Commissioner wasn8217;t and Kejriwal was given a third date, January 16. The RTI Act makes it mandatory to dispose cases in 45 days. What annoyed Kejriewal was that instead of any GMC authority, a government lawyer was representing the government.

On asking the State Chief Information Commissioner SCIC, on the last hearing of the case on December 18, on why officials were not being summoned, SCIC said, 8220;It is my discretion whom I summon to my court.8217;8217; Section 18 3 A of the Act says the State Information Commissioners have the power to 8220;summon and enforce the attendance of persons and compelling them to give oral or written evidence8230;8217;8217;

According to sources, the reason the senior officers are now being sparingly summoned to the RTI Commissioner8217;s court is a missive from Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav following representation from the bureaucrats they were being harassed in the name of RTI. During the IAS week held in November, they had demanded that the CM ensure that they were not for hearings of cases under RTI.

Following this, Mulayam reportedly asked SIC not to summon IAS officers and pull them up. However, SCIC MA Khan denies having received any such missive. Instead, he clarifies that senior officers are called only when the matter isn8217;t sorted out at the lower level.

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SIC Gyanendra Sharma clarified that normally public information officers PIO are summoned but officials concerned are called when they don8217;t part with information to the former. 8220;Penalising PIOs failing to give information because their seniors are not providing them would be an injustice to them,8217;8217; said Sharma.

He said the Commission received 100 to 150 applications every day, and most are disposed at the first level of Assistant Public Information Officers and Public Information Officers at the department level. 8220;Not going into technicalities and taking it as a teething trouble, we entertain each application and dispose off around 60-70 of them every day,8217;8217; Sharma said. He said IAS officers were called only sparingly.