Dear Venkatesh
A few brief numbered paras in case you want to reply.
1) It looks as though we shall have to award the decision to Ashish
after all. What a pity, I was rather hoping that you or Shekhar Singh
(remarkably silent on this group) would have been able to counter
Ashish's argument on the Court Fee Act.
2) Just FYI, "Ashish" was part of the core croup which drafted the RTI
Act de-novo after the disastrous FoI Act. Again FYI IC A.N Tiwari and
and Mr T.K.Vishwanathan were also part of that group in case you
didn't know.
3) In this context I can also inform our members that neither Ms Aruna
Roy, nor Mr Shekhar Singh nor CHRI nor Arvind Kejriwal etc etc have
made any significant contributions to the language of the RTI Act
despite their public posturing and the bullshit they dish out in
public.
4) And while on the topic of plagiarism, the RTI Act did not
originate from the NAC notwithstanding the fact that the draft RTI
Bill was only available on the NAC website (tucked away) for public
viewing / comments (and not even on the Parliament site).
5) Oh, and before I forget,.the parting kick, the RTI Act / movement
did not come about because of what the MKSS did in Rajasthan (or the
NCPRI did anywhere else).
6) So if the "A" team of the NCPRI wants to debate these and/or other
RTI related matters, and now that you (Venkatesh) have thrown in the
towel, this uncensored, unmoderated and no-holds barred NEUTRAL forum
is always open for them (and you).
Sarbajit
PS: I truly hope that you never felt that you were ever censored or
moderated while posting here, because unlike you WE don't believe in
classifying people as "fringe elements" or "moderates".
On 6/21/10, Venkatesh Nayak <venkatesh@humanrightsinitiative.org> wrote:
> Dear friends,
> The recent threads of discussion on fees for appeals and before that the
> discussion on the implications of the Delhi High Court's decision in the
> matter of DDA v CIC have convinced me that this discussion group is in the
> grip of some elements that would like to see RTI destroyed completely. The
> moderator is also clearly in league with such elements. His clarifications
> on the phone that I must not take these innuendoes and namecalling
> personally and that the extreme and often inane interpretations of the RTI
> Act are only meant to encourage 'good debate' seem more and more
> unconvincing. This is not good debate. This is an anti-RTI agenda that is
> being carried out in the name of debate because other discussion groups do
> not tolerate such fringe elements and chuck them out.
>
> Some of us have been trying to present views from the perspective of the RTI
> Act- its original objectives and true intention. But as the old saying goes-
> "none as blind as those who do not wish to see" we are unable to make much
> headway. These threads of discussion are increasingly being directed in the
> way of convincing the more moderate members to agree to destroying all the
> protections that the RTI provides for citizens and placing more restrictions
> on RTI and citizens. As this kind of agenda is being driven by some members
> under the active collusion of the moderator, whatever those of us, truly
> interested in seeing RTI grow from strength to strength say, will not help
> resolve these debates. Then these fringe elements resort to name calling and
> obfuscating issues when their puerile arguments are met with sane and
> reasonable interpretations of the RTI Act which they find difficult to
> repudiate.
>
> RTI is more than lobbing balls at a tennis court as the moderator makes it
> appear. Using the moderator's own metaphor for a little longer- importing
> the scheme of the Court Fees Act into the RTI Act is akin to playing a game
> of tennis by the rules of soccer. The more moderate members of this group
> will understand what I am saying.
>
> This is all I would like to say on this or any other issue for a long while
> starting now.
> Thanks
> Venkat
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