‘Political appointments have jeopardized RTI in Uttar Pradesh’

LUCKNOW - Politicisation of appointments in the State Information Commission have jeopardized the enforcement of Right to Information (RTI) Act in Uttar Pradesh, activists said here Monday.

Activists and speakers at a seminar here on the RTI urged the state government to evolve a monitoring system as per provisions of Section 25 of the RTI Act, 2005, to oversee the effective implementation of the act.

Allahabad High Court’s Justice D.P. Singh also was critical of the appointment of RTI commissioners.

“The very constitution of the selection committee of RTI commissioners was such that it left little scope for independent and objective appointments,” he said.

He was of the view that the three-member committee headed by the chief minister had one nominee minister of the chief minister, besides the leader of the opposition. “That allowed the chief minister to have his/her way as the minister nominated by him/her was bound to sign on the dotted line,” he pointed out.

“Effective use of RTI could go a long way in checking corruption and misuse of power,” Justice Singh said, adding “the law gives the citizens the right to keep a watch on the functioning of the people’s representatives and the government machinery”.

In his keynote address, former Rajya Sabha secretary general and former Union defence secretary Yogendra Narain gave a glimpse of the history of the RTI movement all over the world.

“Sweden took the lead in the world to pass a legislation to that effect way back in 1776, which was adopted by other countries in the due course of time,” he pointed out.

Asserting that there was need for establishing harmony between secrecy and openness, he said RTI was not yet complete and needed to have greater openness and transparency.

He said that RTI could be used to change the government from its “representative” character to “participatory” character involving the people.

He also called upon the bureaucracy to change their mindset about holding back all information from the people’s domain.

In his presidential address, Justice (retd) Kamleshwar Nath dealt with various lacunae in the RTI Act due to which it seemed to lose its purpose. He also felt the need for more “objectivity” and “transparency” in appointments of information commissioners, whose performance was far below expectations.

He said: “It is not clear how the penalty imposed on a PIO (principal information officer) by the commission is to be realised and where it is to be deposited.”

The seminar was organised by Action Group for People’s Right to Information (AGPRI), headed by well known RTI activist Afzal Ansari.