Javed Juneja wrote to Pravin Chheda and Yashodhar Shailesh Phanse asking for formation of rules to 'reign' in RTI activist.
Leader of opposition, Pravin Chheda and standing committee chairperson, Yashodhar Shailesh Phanse in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), in their respective letters to the Municipal Commissioner have asked him to look into demand of their colleague which asks formation of rules to 'reign' in RTI activist.
The corporator who wrote to them is Javed Juneja, in the capacity of the president of the committees of A, B and E wards. Juneja belongs to Congress party that brought the Act. dna in its June 14 issue had reported that the Mayor too had asked that RTI activists be reigned in for better mental health of officers. Her letter to the information commission was also based on letter from Juneja.
dna filed RTI applications to know details of harassment meted out to officials along with remedial action the BMC had taken. BMC's general administration department said that no such records existed apart from letters from corporators.
In his letter, Juneja stated that there are different days designated for public grievances and for hearing of RTI applications. "However, even on the days meant for grievances, RTI activists are present among the citizens, sitting in front of officials for hours together. For one complaint, they file 10 to 12 RTI applications after two days. So the officials lose a lot of time in gathering this information," his letter read.
He stated that the activists usually come from places like Thane and Kalyan. "When the mental framework of officials is spoiled, the other official work they have gets affected. Since they are busy giving replies to RTI activists, they don't even take note of complaints made by corporators on the phone," the letter added.
Referring to the letter by Juneja, Chheda who is also from Congress stated that, in order to give officials more time to work for the corporation, there should be some restriction on the conduct of RTI activists.
Yashoshar 'Shailesh' Phanse, from Shiv Sena in his letter reiterated what Juneja had said, that RTI activist from outside Mumbai ask information that leads to troubled work attitude of officials. "RTI is a good Act. But there should not be any misuse of it. I get thousands of letters and it is my duty to forward every letter from my colleagues. I have only asked that the demand be looked into. It does not mean I support his complaint," Phanse told dna.
Sudhir Naik, deputy municipal commissioner in his response to all of them stated that the RTI Act makes it mandatory to reply to applicants. Also, making rules is with the government under section 27 of the RTI Act.
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