In the run-up to the assembly elections in Jharkhand later this month, a group of activists have been drawing up a report card of the sitting MLAs there.
In the run-up to the assembly elections in Jharkhand later this month, a group of activists have been drawing up a report card of the sitting MLAs there. Among other things they have been seeking innocuous details about their attendance in the assembly. There is only one stock answer they have been getting to such questions: this is a vexatious question.
"We are constantly being accused of trying to defame or blackmail officials by demanding answers to questions that are perfectly valid under the RTI Act," says Anjali Bharadwaj, director of Society for Citizens' Vigilance Initiative, a group that drew up such performance reports of MPs before the Lok Sabha elections.
If the recent amendments proposed to the RTI Act comes through, activists like Bharadwaj will have an even tougher time ferreting information from officialdom. It is to preempt this move that RTI activists from across the country held a protest meeting in the capital today.
RTI groups from Delhi, UP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have banded together under the NCPRI to generate greater awareness among people about the dangers of diluting the act. There are two areas in the proposed amendment that really bother them: the move to disallow vexatious questions and to keep under cover the file notings.
"How do you define vexatious or frivolous? To a senior bureaucrat who earns Rs 50,000 a month a daily wager's demand to know to where his Rs200 went seems frivolous. But to the poor man it is life and death," says activist Shekhar Singh who, along with Aruna Roy of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan led a survey across 11 states on the RTI.
Senior bureaucrats and ministers, he says, are most resistant to share information. "Their travel bills, records — how dare these be questioned, is what irks them the most," he says.
Magasaysay Award winner Aruna Roy says this desire to curb the right is not new. The case against amendments is clear: why look for changes when the existing act hasn’t been implemented according to law? "It’s like asking for a new dress without trying on the one you have. How will you know what fits?" says Roy.
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