If you have filed an RTI with the Jaipur Municipal Corporation and its reply has not been sent to you, chances are that you will not be heard even when you file the first appeal. The common man is not able to get information from the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Mayor Ashok Lahoti himself is becoming a hindrance in the right to information of the common man. The Mayor has not heard the first appeal of RTI for 10 months. Hundreds of applications are pending for the first appeal in the municipal corporation. The applicants are made to run from pillar to post at the JMC headquarters. But the Mayor is not hearing the appeals.
Under the RTI, the applicant can make the first appeal to the concerned department if the said officer does not report or gives wrong information. In the first appeal, if the information is not received, the applicant can apply a second appeal in the State Information Commission. The mayor has the right to hear the first appeal in the municipal corporation. According to the rules, the Mayor should hear the RTI appeals from time to time. But this is not happening in the JMC.
Ashok Lahoti took over as the Mayor on December 14, 2016. After assuming office, the Mayor heard RTI appeals for his first three months in office. Since then the hearing on first appeals have not being taking place. According to information received under RTI, there were 521 appeal applications pending to the Mayor’s office till March 31, 2017.
According to JMC sources, this figure has reached over 1,000 in the last 10 months. Former Mayor Nirmal Nahata used to hear RTI appeals once a month during his tenure. Former mayor Jyoti Khandelwal also maintained a schedule of RTI appeals. Khandelwal used to hear the RTI appeals on the first and third Monday of the month. If there was a government holiday on Monday(s), she would hold the hearing next day.
The present Mayor Ashok Lahoti is taking meetings of Swachh Survekshan, doing inaugurations and laying foundation stones and attending meetings at the BJP office. But he is not hearing the RTI appeals.
Prakash Shukal, noted veteran RTI activist by the name of PIL Man, says that RTI is the right of the common man. RTI appeals are not being heard in the municipal corporation and furthermore no municipal official is ever available in the concerned offices.
All officers have argued that they are engaged in a clean survey.
GEHLOT STRICTURE
Former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had made compulsory for officers for hearing of the common man under Rajasthan Right to Hearing Act -2012. All deputy commissioners and commissioner in the municipal corporation should hear under the Rajasthan Right to Hearing Act -2012 and the RTI Act. But the officials in the municipal corporation are not hearing.
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