‘By nature, governments do not like giving information’: CIC Y K Sinha on RTI Act, its misuse read full article at worldnews365.me

Itemizing varied challenges confronted by the central and state data commissions in terms of the Proper to Info (RTI) Act, Sinha bemoaned that the Act is misused and there are individuals “who survive on filing RTIs” with “vested interests involved”, which in flip “clogs” the system and will increase pendency.

Sinha stated that public authorities additionally cite ‘secrecy’ routinely as a means of denying data and {that a} stability needs to be struck on this regard, noting that ‘secrecy’ “cannot be used routinely to deny information”.

“Secrecy is something that you have to decide as a public authority, what is secret and what is not…It cannot be used routinely to deny information. For instance, ‘whether so and so is posted in some place’ and you say ‘this is a national secret, I can’t tell you under Section 8 (1) (a) (of the RTI Act)’, that is incorrect,” the CIC stated.

Offering knowledge on his assertion, Sinha confirmed that amongst pending second appeals or complaints of appellants, as many as 113 second appeals by a single appellant have been pending and as many as 460 second appeals have been pending of two appellants, cumulatively.

“There are people working in the government and who have problems with their employers…and they file RTIs. In certain departments, 60-70 per cent of the RTIs are filed by such people…When a few people file multiple RTIs, it tends to clog the system,” Sinha stated.

The previous IFS officer stated, “By nature, governments do not like giving information, they try to reveal as little as possible…The most common way of denial is ‘it is personal information’. And it should not be because if you are a public servant, then your postings or educational qualifications, the appellant should know that the said civil servant is a graduate or post graduate…Salaries – that is extremely contentious. You can argue it both ways (privacy versus transparency) but people misuse this information and we are very cautious…We err on the side of caution and we say that the pay scale and gross salaries drawn should be public. Commissioners handle some of these queries differently and that is their right.”

One other problem, as per Sinha, is constitutional courts passing orders in contravention of Part 23 of the RTI Act. Part 23 offers with the bar of jurisdiction of courts and states that no court docket shall entertain any swimsuit, software or different continuing in respect of any order made beneath this Act and no such order shall be known as in query in any other case than by the use of an enchantment beneath this Act.

”Quite a lot of courts don’t essentially observe that limitation and they’re passing judgments which principally are in contravention of Part 23…(There are) instances the place courts intervene and consequently stops the implementation of explicit order. Very hardly ever do the selections (by state data commissions or CIC) get overturned (however) we see a keep ordered or issued different directives to the commissions…Courts additionally do this as a result of there’s a lot pendency. When the courts intervene, they direct, which in my view just isn’t precisely as per the Act,” stated Sinha.

Citing few such examples, Sinha stated that energy distribution corporations (discoms) have been held to be a public authority by the CIC in 2006 however the choice was then stayed by the Delhi Excessive Court docket in 2010. Equally, the fee in June 2013 had held political events as public authorities however the identical was stayed. “Obviously no political party likes to be covered under the Act, because you have to be transparent, divulge information,” added Sinha. BCCI too was deemed as a public authority by CIC in 2018 however the identical was stayed by Madras Excessive Court docket.