The Right to Information activists from across Haryana staged a demonstration outside the State Information Commission office in Chandigarh on Tuesday accusing the State Government of “murdering” the law. They demanded that vacant posts in the Commission be filled, and the order making the submission of identify proof mandatory for a RTI application be revoked, among other things.
The activists alleged that the Government had “murdered” the law by not doing enough for its proper implementation and rather issuing “unconstitutional diktats”. “Instead of appointing those with the knowledge of the law, the Government has appointed people close to the ruling dispensation as the Information Commissioners. The State Information Officials and the First Appellant Authority officials don’t know even the basics of the Act,” said Panipat-based RTI activist P.P. Kapoor.
He accused the Government of making the submission of identity proof mandatory through a gazette notification on April 12 as part of its “anti-RTI agenda” and not adhering to the directions of the SIC against this “unconstitutional amendment”.
Posts vacant
“Of the 11 posts of Information Commissioners, six are lying vacant. It takes two to three years to get the information under the Act. If our demands are not met, we will hold demonstration at district headquarters and burn the effigies of Chief Minister Manohar Lal,” said Mr. Kapoor, president, Jan Abhiyan Manch.
The activists also accused the Government of not sharing the public documents such as the educational qualification, experience certificate of Government employees by referring to the “opinion” of the Supreme Court on the matter as its “direction”. This, said the activists, had given a licence to the corrupt to commit fraud in admissions to educational institutes and government jobs appointments.
The activists submitted a memorandum to the SIC for the President with a dozen demands including to make public the information related to all Departments under Section 4 of the RTI Act, initiate departmental action against the defaulters for not paying the penalty for violation of the law, impart training to officials, hold workshops and seminars to create public awareness and put in place a system for online filing of the RTI applications and hearing of appeals through videoconferencing.
‘To prevent misuse’
A senior SIC official, on condition of anonymity, said a meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary was scheduled in a week’s time to fill the vacant posts and the process would be over soon. On making submission of the ID proof mandatory, the official said it was to curb the misuse of the Act, and was in keeping with a Punjab and Haryana High Court direction.
The official said efforts were on to seek right for deduction of penalty from the salary of the defaulters. “Haryana Information Commission had imposed ₹95.85 lakh penalty in 449 cases from April 2019 to July 2020 and ranked the first among all states as per Satark Nagrik Sangathan Centre for Equity Studies report published in October this year. Also, we have ordered Rs.10 lakh compensation, the highest among all states, during this period. The recovery of outstanding penalty has gone up from 31% to 48% and the Chief Minister is serious about it. Our pendency of cases is also very low with only 6,000 pending cases,” said the official.
