Source: https://right2information.wordpress.com/category/rti-activists/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:22:24+00:00

Document:
Right to Information Act has given the people of this country a ray of hope, which no other law ever gave. All these years, people had become cynics. Everyone felt and believed that nothing could change. But now, those who have used RTI are full of energy. They have already started witnessing changes, albeit small, in their lives and surroundings. Ration shops, which had not opened for years, have started opening up. People have started getting their rations cards, widow pensions, old age pensions, for which bribes were being extorted earlier. For the first time, people did not feel so helpless dealing with the Government.
Central Information Commission was set up to help people get information, if it were denied under RTI Act. They were set up to protect this right of the citizens. However, in the last one year of its functioning, CIC has made a complete mockery of the RTI Act.
71% of the cases have been “disposed” off without hearing appellants. Commissioners have publicly stated that they don’t need to hear people before dismissing their cases.
RTI Act requires compulsory imposition of penalty on officials, who do not provide information in time or who provide false information. Commissioners refuse to impose penalties, howsoever grave might be the offence. Being former bureaucrats, their heart weeps for officials. Out of 1500 cases decided by them so far, penalty has been imposed only in two. One has already been withdrawn. The other is in the process of being withdrawn.
So far, officials were scared that a penalty might be imposed on them if they did not provide correct information in time. But no more. The officials all over the country are now openly denying information. PIOs challenge people to do whatever they could.
Commissioners misbehave with the public during hearings. One applicant wanted to know the action taken on his complaint of tax evasion filed with Income Tax Department. He was threatened by one of the Commissioners that FIR would be filed against him if he dared to file another such RTI in future.
Someone applied for a petrol pump. He did not get it. He suspected foul play. He asked for the marks awarded to each applicant by the interview board. CIC refused this information saying that the relationship between the interview board and HPCL was fiduciary.
According to them, a transparent examination system is not in “public interest”. It would adversely affect the integrity of examination system.
Someone made an application to a Government Department. He lost his application. He applied under RTI for a copy of his own application, which was rejected saying that this was private information, which had no public interest.
Someone applied for a kerosene depot. He filed an application asking for the status of his own application. It was rejected saying that this was private information and had no public interest.
With no judicial background, are these Commissioners professionally capable of handling their job? A long time after independence did we see a ray of hope for a better future. Should we allow them to shatter our hopes?
We, therefore, request the President to order an enquiry under sec 14 of the RTI Act into the functioning of CIC. If the President grants us a half hour appointment, we would like to make a detailed presentation to the President to sensitize him on the kind of orders, which are being passed by the Commission and how there has been serious miscarriage of justice. We are presenting a detailed report in this regard.
The present set of Information Commissioners should be sacked. Henceforth, no bureaucrat should be appointed as an Information Commissioner. The process of appointment of Information Commissioners should be transparent and should be done by calling for names from the public.
RTI Act 2005:: ONE YEAR :: Now, what next?
And the message was PASSED SUCCESSFULLY, in a democratic and peaceful manner. President took note, responded and announced his offer of appointment and discussion with the protestors. He received the copy of memorandum.
We were concerned about the dignity of The President. And considering it, we started our protest right after President took the chair after his speech and Mr O P Kejriwal was giving vote of thanks. As we noticed, President initially asked Mr Habibullah, sitting on His left, about the protest, but soon (probably not satisfied with the answer) He turned to Mr Anna Hazare, sitting on His Right. After Mr O P Kejriwal finished with his Vote of Thanks(7-8 minutes ), President called Mr A N Tiwari and asked him to announce his desire to meet us soon, after seeking appointment through email. In the mean time a memorandum was demanded by the President Staff. Our request to read it in the same house was turned down by the security staff. And Finally He left at 8.20 pm.
What happened after that was not all unexpected. Six of us were detained as we came out of the Vigyan Bhawan. For more than 45 minutes we were interrogated by senior security officers. Then, at 9.30 pm, we were taken over to Tughlak Road Police Station. We were told that ‘our liberties were being curtailed’. Lots of teams appeared one after other and interrogated each of us. We knew that we have done nothing wrong, but the way we were being questioned was as if we have made some serious offence. Any way. We answered with patience. Surprisingly police teams reached at our homes after midnight and interrogated our families too. Finally at 3.30 we all were allowed to go home.
When we came out we saw Mrs Madhu Bhaduri, Sandeep Pandey, Abhinandan, Pabitro and many other RTI activists were also present there waiting for us outside.
This is the story. I would like to add that, though, few of us prepared for this banner demonstration till last moment, but once it started in the hall, the entire RTI Biradari was active. Specially during the demonstration, which lasted more than 10 minutes, all our friends, who have come to attend the conference from across the country(Karnataka, Gujrat, MP, Chattisgarh, Punjab, Maharashtra, UP and others), participated in it. Someone stood up to hold the banner and someone took the job to distribute the handbills. Within a minute, everyone was active on it’s own.
Of course, we should try to meet the President as soon as possible. But should we also make a point that why we were detained for so long? Why we and our families were interrogated like this? These are certainly important issues, and civil society from all over the world has criticized it, but should we put our energies into such matters or not? We have to decide where to focus. I think RTI Biradari should decide it collectively.
On the first anniversary of the Right to Information Act protests were held in the capital.
The protests held ironically to sack the Central Information Commissioner for going soft on officials denying vital information to citizens.
After President APJ Abdul Kalam finished his speech on the first anniversary of the Act, over a dozen RTI activists suddenly stood up, silently unfurling banners, asking for a hearing.
Not a word was uttered by the activists from different NGOs. All they did was hold aloft banners, asking for the Central Information Commissioner to be sacked.
The protest comes in the wake of severe criticism of the Commissioner for going soft on officials denying information to citizens despite the RTI Act coming into effect a year back.
“We protested because we think that CIC has completely ruined the act. No work is being done,” said Manish Sisodia, activist.
“The president has said that the protestors should send him an email and he will talk to them,” Sisodia said.
The president agreed to grant them an audience, instructing them to Email him requesting an appointment.
But voices against officials responsible for implementing the RTI Act have been growing shriller.
Many activists involved with the RTI movement since its inception have in fact chosen to completely avoid the first anniversary celebrations.
“We didn’t go because what to do there. It’s a cultural programme and not a discussion on how we can improve the RTI after its one year performance, ” said Prashant Bhushan, activist.
Perhaps reflecting the voices of dissent in his address, Kalam appealed to the CIC to make the RTI Act more meaningful by increasing transparency as well as public awareness about the Act itself.
Meanwhile, some RTI activists from Parivarthan have been arrested and they are at Tuglak Road Police Station.
They have been arrested because they had some banners for saving RTI at the President’s function at the Vigyan Bhawan.
banners with the following messages on them: "SACK CIC – SAVE RTI"
address the gathering. After the President, Mr OP Kejriwal spoke.
appointment to make their case. The meeting came to an end peacefully.
in shaping the campaign and engaging people with the RTI movement.
Those arrested have been taken to Tughlaqabad Police Station.
7 RTI activists in Delhi today.
RTI Convention is being held in Delhi.
you inaugurated today earlier in the evening.
will act in such a highhanded manner.
I hope you’ll intervene to save the situation.
A-893, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016, U.P.
Social change is the necessity of any society. In India it is done through Public Interest Litigation. In this article an attempt was made to assess the impact of PIL over Indian Society. The jurisprudence of PIL is necessary to understand the nature of PIL in India.
Such is the disillusionment with the state formal legal system that it is no longer demanded by law to do justice, if justice perchance is done, we congratulate ourselves for being fortunate. In these circumstances one of the best things that have happened in the country in recent years is the process of social reform through Public Interest Litigation or Social Action Litigation.
Late 1970s marked discernible shift from legal centralism. Legal pluralism was very apparent now. It was realized that social conduct was regulated by the interaction of normative orders, notion of popular justice, community justice, and distributive justice were sought to be institutionalised, though outside the sphere of the formal legal system and in opposition to it.
Necessity of informal justice, whether as an alternative to state law or as to its agent to find its identity in opposition to state law stems from the nature of Anglo-Saxon law prescribing legal formalism and due to the failure of formal legal system to deliver justice that forced informal justice to take on a separate identity from state law.
The British rule bequeathed to India a colonial legal heritage. The Anglo-Saxon model of adjudication insisted upon observance of procedural technicalities such as locus standi and adherence to adversarial system of litigation. The result was that the courts were accessible only to the rich and the influential people. The marginalized and disadvantaged groups continued to be exploited and denied basic human rights.
PIL today offers such a paradigm which locates the content of informal justice without the formal legal system. Non Anglo-Saxon jurisdiction directs courts to transcend the traditional judicial function of adjudication and provide remedies for social wrongs. PIL had already molded the state in to the instrument of socio-economic change. Social justice is the byproduct of this transcends from the formal legal system.
The Indian PIL is the improved version of PIL of U.S.A. According to “Ford Foundation” of U.S.A., “Public interest law is the name that has recently been given to efforts that provide legal representation to previously unrepresented groups and interests. Such efforts have been undertaken in the recognition that ordinary marketplace for legal services fails to provide such services to significant segments of the population and to significant interests. Such groups and interests include the proper environmentalists, consumers, racial and ethnic minorities and others”. The emergency period (1975-1977) witnessed colonial nature of the Indian legal system. During emergency state repression and governmental lawlessness was widespread. Thousands of innocent people including political opponents were sent to jails and there was complete deprivation of civil and political rights. The post emergency period provided an occasion for the judges of the Supreme Court to openly disregard the impediments of Anglo-Saxon procedure in providing access to justice to the poor. Notably two justices of the Supreme Court, Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer and P. N. Bhagwati recognised the possibility of providing access to justice to the poor and the exploited people by relaxing the rules of standing. In the post-emergency period when the political situations had changed, investigative journalism also began to expose gory scenes of governmental lawlessness, repression, custodial violence, drawing attention of lawyers, judges, and social activists. PIL emerged as a result of an informal nexus of pro-active judges, media persons and social activists. This trend shows starke difference between the traditional justice delivery system and the modern informal justice system where the judiciary is performing administrative judicial role. PIL is necessary rejection of laissez faire notions of traditional jurisprudence.
The first reported case of PIL in 1979 focused on the inhuman conditions of prisons and under trial prisoners. In Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar, AIR 1979 SC 1360, the PIL was filed by an advocate on the basis of the news item published in the Indian Express, highlighting the plight of thousands of undertrial prisoners languishing in various jails in Bihar. These proceeding led to the release of more than 40, 000 undertrial prisoners. Right to speedy justice emerged as a basic fundamental right which had been denied to these prisoners. The same set pattern was adopted in subsequent cases.
In 1981 the case of Anil Yadav v. State of Bihar, AIR 1982 SC 1008, exposed the brutalities of the Police. News paper report revealed that about 33 suspected criminals were blinded by the police in Bihar by putting the acid into their eyes. Through interim orders S. C. directed the State government to bring the blinded men to Delhi for medical treatment. It also ordered speedy prosecution of the guilty policemen. The court also read right to free legal aid as a fundamental right of every accused. Anil Yadav signalled the growth of social activism and investigative litigation.
In (Citizen for Democracy v. State of Assam, (1995) 3SCC 743), the S. C. declared that the handcuffs and other fetters shall not be forced upon a prisoner while lodged in jail or while in transport or transit from one jail to another or to the court or back.
According to the jurisprudence of Article 32 of the Constitution of India, “The right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by this part is guaranteed”. Ordinarily, only the aggrieved party has the right to seek redress under Article 32.
The rule of locus standi have been relaxed and a person acting bonafide and having sufficient interest in the proceeding of Public Interest Litigation will alone have a locus standi and can approach the court to wipe out violation of fundamental rights and genuine infraction of statutory provisions, but not for personal gain or private profit or political motive or any oblique consideration (Ashok Kumar Pandey v. State of W. B., (2004) 3 SCC 349).
Supreme Court in Indian Banks’ Association, Bombay and ors v. M/s Devkala Consultancy Service and Ors., J. T. 2004 (4) SC 587, held that “In an appropriate case, where the petitioner might have moved a court in her private interest and for redressal of the personal grievance, the court in furtherance of Public Interest may treat it a necessity to enquire into the state of affairs of the subject of litigation in the interest of justice. Thus a private interest case can also be treated as public interest case”.
In Guruvayur Devaswom Managing Commit. And Anr. Vs. C.K. Rajan and Ors, J.T. 2003 (7) S.C. 312, S.C. held, “The Courts exercising their power of judicial review found to its dismay that the poorest of the poor, depraved, the illiterate, the urban and rural unorganized labour sector, women, children, handicapped by ‘ignorance, indigence and illiteracy’ and other down trodden have either no access to justice or had been denied justice. A new branch of proceedings known as ‘Social Interest Litigation’ or ‘Public Interest Litigation’ was evolved with a view to render complete justice to the aforementioned classes of persona. It expanded its wings in course of time. The Courts in pro bono publico granted relief to the inmates of the prisons, provided legal aid, directed speedy trial, maintenance of human dignity and covered several other areas. Representative actions, pro bono publico and test litigations were entertained in keeping with the current accent on justice to the common man and a necessary disincentive to those who wish to by pass the, real issues on the merits by suspect reliance on peripheral procedural shortcomings… Pro bono publico constituted a significant state in the present day judicial system. They, however, provided the dockets with much greater responsibility for rendering the concept of justice available to the disadvantaged sections of the society. Public interest litigation has come to stay and its necessity cannot be overemphasized. The courts evolved a jurisprudence of compassion. Procedural propriety was to move over giving place to substantive concerns of the deprivation of rights. The rule of locus standi was diluted. The Court in place of disinterested and dispassionate adjudicator became active participant in the dispensation of justice”.

References: V. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.