Activists worried as officials defy RTI panel orders

CHENNAI: August 16, 2010:
times of india, jeeva
P Balasubramaniam, a former village administrative officer in Cuddalore, filed an application under the Right To Information (RTI) Act with the Vridhachalam taluk office in September 2009, seeking to know the names and addresses of freedom fighters living in the district and that of persons who had made queries under RTI Act with the taluk office.
The public information officer did not respond. Balasubramaniam filed an appeal with the appellate authority of the taluk office but to no avail. He moved the State Information Commission which, on June 28, directed the taluk office to furnish him the details he had sought for. But the order still remains only on paper as the taluk office has not cared to comply with the information commission's directive.

Balasubramaniam is not alone to draw a blank. V Gopalakrishnan, an activist in KK Nagar, said there were half-a-dozen queries for which he did not receive information from public authorities such as Chennai Corporation and the registration department, in spite of the information commission's directive.

"I asked for a copy of the answersheet of a class IX student in a Chennai Corporation school last year under the RTI Act as there were two students with the same name. One of them had studied well but failed and I wanted to know if there was a mix-up. The corporation has not given me a copy of the answersheet even though the commission gave the directive to Chennai Corporation three months ago," Gopalakrishnan said.

M Thuyamurthy, an activist in Tondiarpet, said: "Many public information officers don't bother to reply to RTI queries till the applicant moves the commission. I filed an appeal against the fisheries department when they did not furnish the information I asked for. I wanted to know about certain irregularities in the fisheries cooperative societies. But even after the commission's directive, the department chose to give only incomplete information. Now I have moved the commission again. I want proper replies to my queries."

"The commission conducts hearings whenever it thinks is necessary. But in several cases where it passes orders without hearings, the public authorities don't take its orders seriously," said V Madhav, an RTI campaiger in Alwarpet.

Many activists said the absence of a proper mechanism to follow up the public authorities' compliance of the information commission's orders embolden concerned departments to easily violate the provisions of the RTI Act.

Moreover, even though the RTI Act says a fine of Rs 250 per day can be imposed against those who fail to reply to RTI queries, subject to a maximum of Rs 25,000, and even though the commission has imposed fine in about 50 cases, almost all of them have moved the high court and obtained stay orders against the payment of fine.

Source: TOI