In book launch, info chief says time to look at lacuneas in Act for better compliance
The judiciary is the biggest threat to the RTI Act, said former chief information commissioner during his book release function on Thursday. 'RTI Act - Authentic Interpretation of the Statute' which has been available in soft copy for a while was formally release held at the Nehru Centre in Worli.
Among those present were Ratnakar Gaikwad, state chief information commissioner who released the book, Justice B N Srikrishna, who has written a foreword in it, and Pralhad Kachare, co-author of the book with Gandhi among others.
Stating that It is time people addressed "the elephant in the room", which is constricting implementation of the RTI Act, Gandhi, referring to its court orders said that they were clipping the RTI Act. "There have been orders where in they upheld that information should be given and now they feel otherwise. Our of 12 orders, only in two have they upheld that information should be provided to the applicant," said Gandhi with whom Srikrishna and Gaikwad disagreed.
He added, "In case of Subhach Chandra Agarwal's matter where in he had sought details of medical expenses claimed by judges, the court decided to constitute a bigger bench in 2010 and has still not found time to do so."
"You do not agree with Supreme Court's decision taken if you do not want to. But it has the privilege of being the highest court. What court says, you have to accept it. It is not the last court because it is right but is the highest level at which the law is interpreted correctly. That is the bottomline," said Srikrishna adding, "I was also not for disclosing the assets not because I have too much of it but because people would get to know I have only Rs 10,000 as balance."
Gaikwad stated that the RTI Act needed to be looked at again because there were issues of compliance. "If other tribunals have contempt power, why not the commission. The information commission too is a tribunal in some ways," said Gaikwad advocating that fining should be enhanced.
He also stated that there are people who were misusing the RTI Act and that needs to be acknowledged. "The usage of RTI Act can be divided into three categories. The A category uses it for public interest while B for personal information to solve grievances. The C category is the one which uses it for harrassment and extortion," said Gaikwad.
"But can only Sant Tukaram and not anguli maar Walmikis use RTI Act," asked one of the people who attended the event. The session that was open a discussion and question and answer saw one of the journalist, Seema Kamdar state that not all RTI activist who have lost their life were genuine. Questions were also asked about what is the stand of the authors on public authorities not having rules that are in consonance of RTI Act and actually against it. "There are instances where authorities have made rules that are against the Act. However, that is not the case here," Kachare.
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