Dangers of being an RTI activist- Lucknow

 

 Source:TNN, Mar 21, 2010, 02.01am IST

LUCKNOW: Information often comes at a price. 

In some cases even at the cost of life. The RTI activists narrated these 

facts before the MLAs who had come to attend a seminar on `RTI Act

and the view of the state legislators' organised at the Indian Institute of 

Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) on Saturday.

Substantiating the point was an IPS officer and president of RTI Forum,
Amitabh Thakur, who emphasised the goal of transparency and accountability
of the RTI Act. Thakur dwelt at length about the Section 8(1)(a) to
8(1)(j) of the Act under which information can be withheld and the
way these sections are presumably misused by the public authorities in denying information.

He went on to quote three examples, that of Satish Shetty of Pune,
Shashidhar Mishra of Begusarai and Venkatesh of Eeranapalya.

These persons, he said, were murdered for being RTI activists. 

The forum calls them `RTI martyrs'.

MLA from Sultanpur Anup Sanda narrated his experiences as
a social worker which were quite in consonance with the woes
of the RTI activists. He said that there was a huge delay in the
information being disseminated to the RTI activists. He was quick
to emphasise upon the need to have stringent penalties for the
public authorities violating the provisions of law.

Siddharth Shankar, MLA from Malihabad, claimed RTI to be a
fundamental right. He admitted that red-tape was marring the very
tenets of act which needed to be addressed. Likewise, Banda MLA
Vivek Singh said that with RTI Act even the masses had acquired
the rights, previously limited to the MPs and the legislators.

Dev Dutt Sharma asked the legislators to move the issue of present
state information commissioner Ranjit Pankaj being a convict and
still occupying the coveted seat, to which the legislators consented.

Nutan Thakur, an RTI activist and member of National RTI Forum,
urged the legislators to do something to increase the number
of employees in the State Information Commission so that the
burden of the SIC is reduced. The legislators agreed and
assured to raise the matter in the forthcoming Assembly session.

Mata Prasad Pandey, former Vidhan Sabha speaker, said that
he would try his best to initaite efforts for making amendments in the Act.

The National RTI Forum is an association looking into matters
related to RTI activists, including their training, guidance,
support and security related aspects as also about the RTI Act
and its broader policy related issues.