[IAC#RG] RTI Act (Amendment) Bill 2013

To:

Joint Secretary (PPG)

Rajya Sabha

26-Sep-2013

BY EMAIL

Sir

This refers our telecon today.

I am given to understand that the subject Bill is referred to your Departmental Committee for further consideration.

I am further given to understand that a public notice inviting comments from affected persons was published on 21 Sept 2013 in some newspapers, but I could not access the same as newspapers have become very expensive nowadays for ordinary citizens, and also thanks to the UPA Govt. (under directions of  Hon'ble Chairperson UPA) the citizens like undersigned since 2005 have been used to getting such relevant information about Govt. free of cost under the Right to Information over the Internet suo-moto.

It seems, however, that this important Amendment Bill's public notice has not been uploaded to website and the last date for responding is also not specified in Rajya Sabha website. Ordinarily I would be the last person to attribute any ulterior motives for this oversight where the aam aadmi is being excluded from Parliamentary consultative processes by non-disclosure by the very same authority which passed this beneficial legislation, but seeing as how this amendment is directly for the benefit of members of the Houses, I am constrained to formally protest this curious oversight.

Accordingly, I request you to kindly put it up to the Honble Committee to extend the date for submitting comments for at least 15 days after it the public notice is uploaded to the website.

In any case, in the interim, I wish to submit on behalf of the National Campaign for Political Reform in India (NCPRI) and the India Against Corruption andolan, both movements of which I happen to be the present National Convenor of, as follows:-

1) That political parties are presently not public authorities as defined in RTI Act 2005. That the operative judgment on which the CIC (Central Information Commission) order of 03-June-2013 is based ie. "Veeresh Malik versus Indian Olympic Association" was in the case of the co-convenor of the above 2 movements, and has been comprehensively misinterpreted by the CIC.

2) That the CIC decision dt. 03-June-2013 is a mischievous and legally unsound decision delivered, for extraneous considerations, by incompetent persons on the verge of retirement, who were all appointed under an opaque discretionary process best described as "horse trading".

3) That there is an urgent need to lay down proper qualifications and transparent selection procedures for appointment of Information Commissioners of proven merit and integrity, so that such kind of corrupt decisions do not again emanate from the Information Commissions.

4) That the RTI Act 2005 requires to be urgently amended in a transparent manner after wide public consultation to sort out many inherent obstacles and grey areas which are obstructing the citizens from receiving information. This may include specifically defining therein that political parties shall be public authority, for purposes of the RTI Act, along with all private and semi-public bodies performing public activities.

We may be submitting our detailed submissions once the public notice is available to us for perusal and discussed by our nationwide membership.

Our movements would also like to personally appear before the Hon'ble Committee and make our presentations in person. We woudl be obliged if you would kindly place this communication on the record of the Hon'ble Committee for this Bill.

With best regards

( Er. Sarbajit Roy )

National Convenor : India Against Corruption, jan andolan

National Convenor : National Campaign for Political Reform in India

www.indiaagainstcorruption.net.in

www.ncpri.org

Mailing address:

2nd floor, B-59 Defence Colony

New Delhi 110024

Tel : 011-24334262