Right to Information act – a best thing that has ever happened to, we Indians: Let us not be
frivolous or mischievous in our deeds to damage it irreversibly forever.
I recently had the first hand and my first ever experience - how it (RTI Act) had punctured the imperious, macho and Machiavellians attitudes of the Navratna PSU company’s PIO & the HR head – in fact the whole ‘Board of Directors’ were over zealously supporting it behind the scene. One of the incidences, during these proceedings, which touched the most, was a ‘Muslim Judge’ using Hindu sentiments to make the message through to these authoritative and impervious establishment who audaciously questioned the simple and legitimate request for the information
“… [Appellant] will tear it and immerse it in the ‘Ganges’…” – a most sacred river to us Hindus. Every Hindu desires that his/ her ashes after the cremations are immersed in the holy river “Ganges” to attain salvation -
“Moksha”. The avoidance of logical and reasoned justification often comes from the top. Reticence has always appealed to those who are powerful public authority, usually unwilling to scrutinize the basis of their policies essentially fearing exposures and later ridiculed for being subverting rights and liberties of others. It is hoped that these Public Authorities would get encouraged from this example, amend their arbitrariness and condemnable actions.
The judgment elated a great satisfaction and happiness for its ramification to advance justice to the whole community of employees of government – state as well as central and the PSUs; though initially it was being pursued solely for the purpose of self interest to unearth an information – to know what really had conspired to inflict injustice and discrimination. The real motivation was the inequities and the subjugations suffered, consequently a good reason to resent with a perceivable remediable injustice, with an exemplary mechanism – the RTI Act, already in place to overcome this injustice.
It is also desirous that the Act is protected from being “tinkered” by vested interests. In the recent past, there had been a vigorous campaign of “Tinkering and diluting” the Act by these interests, which was very timely put to a stop by the Hon'ble Chairperson of UPA Madam Sonia Gandhi, who wrote back to Dr. Man Mohan Singh the Hon’ble PM of India on 10th November 2009:
“The RTI Act… as one of the most effective pieces of legislation, as instrument that has empowered people and made government more responsive… Much has been achieved in these initial years and while there are still problems of implementations, RTI has begun to change the lives of our people and the ways of governance in the country. It will of course take time before the momentum generated by the Acts makes for greater transparency and accountability in the structure of the government… It is important, therefore, that we adhere to its original aims and refrain from accepting or introducing changes in the legislations on the way it is implemented that would dilute its purpose”
It is imperative that the short comings like lack of public awareness about the RTI Act; untrained information officers/appellant authorities, harassment, intimidation, threatening and killing of RTI activists be addressed immediately by our law makers whole heartedly.
The Landmark Decision is available at the
Central Information Commissioners (CIC) web site @
http://rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/5973_IC_A__2010_M_42690.pdf
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