The RTI act has brewed a quiet social revolution and played a vital role in the governance of the country, reports Vinita Deshmukh.
The first taste I got of the power of the Right To Information Act, was a year or two before the National RTI Act was implemented on October 12, 2005.
At that time the Maharashtra RTI Act was already in place (since 2003). A prisoner in the Yerawada Central Prison who was serving a life sentence for murder but was kept in the Open Jail for his good conduct, invoked the RTI Act when he was shifted to the closed jail. The reason? He had spearheaded an agitation against bad quality food. All he wanted was a copy of the Indian Prison Manual Act to understand why he was shunted to the closed jail.
When his RTI application was not accepted, he sent a beautifully penned letter in English to Prakash Kardaley the then Resident Editor of The Indian Express, Pune and pioneer of RTI movement in Maharashtra along with Anna Hazare. Kardaley asked me to follow up the story (I too was working with the newspaper at that time).
I had to only make one phone call to Inspector General, Prisons asking him why the convict’s RTI application was denied and hey presto, within 24 hours not only was he asked to re-submit his RTI application, but he was handed over the required copy.
All you need to be is a citizen of India, no matter from what strata or profession and you have the right to demand information from the government which was until recently functioning under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
As per the annual record book of the State Chief Information Commission of Maharashtra, a whopping 5.5 lakh RTI applications were filed in various government departments of Maharashtra in 2010 alone. Out of these, total applications, 59,000 (or about 10%) went into first appeals. The number of second appeals declined from 23,000 in 2009 to 19,000 in 2010.
This, in lay man’s terms means that the Public Information Officers (PIO), which is a RTI applicant’s first contact point have largely provided information to the seeker. Only 10 per cent, had to seek redress from a senior officer (who is generally the First Appellate Authority and an appeal is made to him if the PIO declines or gives wrong or half-hearted information). The information commission is the second party for redress (if even the First Appellate Authority does not pay heed to the Applicant’s appeal or is not happy with his decision or the Applicant can even simultaneously file first and second appeals).
The RTI Act has brewed a quiet social revolution and played a vital role in the governance of the country. RTI users and activists in practically every nook and corner of the country are asking questions on varied subjects. Students appearing for competitive and board examinations who were not convinced with their mark sheets have demanded original answer sheets under RTI and most have received them. A tribal student who sat for a competitive examination in Maharashtra last year, for the post of a ‘Gramsevak’ was shocked to find he had failed the test. He asked for his original answer sheet but was denied by the PIO. He appealed to the Information Commissioner, Pune Division who ordered the PIO to give him the copy. It came to light that the student was ‘purposefully’ failed. His mark sheet was rectified (he has stood in the merit list) and he got the job of ‘Gramsevak.’
Queries on innumerable subjects like pensions schemes; bank transactions; land records; expenditure on public roads (mostly pot-holed); infrastructural projects particularly those with public-private partnership; change of land zones (especially those which have been changed to suit builder/developer lobby); report card of councilors and Member of Parliament; the infamous documents of the Common Wealth Games I Delhi and the Adarsh Housing scam in Mumbai – and many more have been thrown open in the public domain.
However, the dark side of the RTI Act is the brutal killings of RTI activists. In 2010 alone, there were 11 attacks on activists in various parts of Maharashtra, accounting to 50 per cent of such nationwide attacks. Pune based Satish Shetty was brutally killed while on his way back home from his morning walk on January 13, 2010 for exposing land scams of allegedly mighty politicians. In February, Thane based Arun Sawant was attacked and permanently paralysed for exposing land scams at a local municipal council. In April, Beed based Vithal Gite was killed for exposing corruption in the local panchayat and block office. In May, Dattatreya Patil was killed in the textile town of Ichalkaranji for exposing corruption in the handloom sector. Nanded’s Ramdas Ghadegaonkar was murdered for exposing scam in the fuel and grain allocation in the public distribution system. In December, Irfan Qazi was killed for protesting against the controversial Jaitapur Nuclear Plant.
2011 opened with Mumbai based Yashwant Gavand being killed for procuring documents which showed that a local councilor had not honestly declared his assets to the Election Commission, which is mandatory. In Pune, Late Satish Shetty’s colleague, Arun Mane, was killed for following up Shetty;s issues of land scams along the Pune-Mumbai Expressway. Most distressingly, none of these cases have been solved. As usual, the police are still investigating and so the culprits roam free and feel like victors.
So, should this be a deterrent to unearthing information under RTI? Certainly not. RTI activists of Maharashtra have appealed to people to make the information public, when they procure it. It is easy for the untoward elements to strike at one person but if the same information is spread through the Internet and by approaching the media, then it will be difficult for them to conduct such heinous acts. Secondly, the Maharashtra Government has issued a circular to the police department to take serious note of a complaint by a RTI activist and immediately provide protection if he perceives a threat to his life. In the case of Shetty, the police did not provide protection despite an official letter written by him. Considering that Mumbai has had seven dastardly bomb blasts in 12 years and the Mumbai Police is still groping in the dark, hoping for protection of RTI activists may seem far-fetched.
What is the urgent need of the hour is for the government departments to abide by the Section 4 of the RTI Act which makes it compulsory for them to put all their functioning (expenditure, disbursements, subsidies, grants,
proposals etc) on their websites in the public domain. Thus, all that the government does with public money will be available at the click of the mouse and there will hardly be any need of citizens to invoke the RTI Act. They are deliberately avoiding such transparency for obvious reasons.
Until then, if more and more citizens use the RTI Act for issues that directly concern them (they need not always fight on larger issues), the composite picture of demand for accountability and transparency will be a formidable one and the government will find it easier to upload the same on its website instead of being overloaded with RTI queries and having to answer each one of them.
