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.

TI covers info on tax refunds

Sources:TNN, Mar 12, 2010, 12.04am IST



CHENNAI: Getting tax refunds from the income-tax (I-T)

department is a hassle for many citizens, who either do not

receive it or get it only after many years.

In a landmark ruling,

the Central Information Commissioner 

has passed an order

which said information on refunds is covered under the 

Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The Central Information Commissioner while passing the
order, said "To deny the appellant information sought b
him under clause (e) or clause (j) of section 8(1) is nothing
but misappreciation of law."

"The information sought by the appellant is covered under

section 2(f) of the RTI Act and he has a right of seek 

information under section 2(j) thereof.

It is clarified that the appellant has not
sought any information which the
public authority is holding in fiduciary capacity,"
M L Sharma,CIC, said in his order.

RTI helps Mulund blast accused get bail after 7 years

By Anand Holla

Posted On Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 02:02:10 AM

RTI application gave information, based on which a judicial 

enquiry showed that Mulund blast accused Adnan Mulla, 

was illegally detained for 35 days; HC granted him bail on Monday

Mulund-Vile Parle-Mumbai Central blasts case, was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Monday. What eventually came to Mulla’s rescue is a confidential judicial enquiry that had indicted three cops for illegally detaining Mulla for 35 days, the first hint of which came from the Right To Information (RTI) plea that his brother-in-law and prime accused Saquib Nachan had filed. The Division Bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and V K Tahilramani on Monday granted Mulla bail, with orders to report to the Padgha police everyday till the trial commenced, and once a week then on. Behind bars since May 2003, Mulla - the last accused to be arrested in the case - was to get married 19 days after he was put behind bars. Adnan Mulla, who was illegally detained Holding a confidential judicial inquiry into Mulla’s alleged illegal detention, the Principal Judge of the Sessions Court T V Nalawade had submitted its report to the HC in July 2008, in which it had indicted three police officers “responsible for Mulla’s illegal, unauthorised detention for 35 days”. The report had held Assistant Police Inspector (API) N K Patil (then in charge, Padgha police), API R V Vhanmane (Crime Branch), and ACP R V Padwal (investigating officer, Mulund blasts), as the policemen behind Mulla’s detention. During those 35 days, Mulla claimed to have been tortured to give false statements against Nachan, and to become a witness or approver in the case. When Saquib Nachan was to be arrested in the Mulund blasts case on March 27, 2003, at Padgha, Mulla was among the crowd who had obstructed the police from arresting Nachan. Mulla surrendered before the Padgha police on May 5, 2003, only to be taken to Padwal’s Crime Branch office and to be kept in a torture cell, the inquiry revealed. The same day, the Padgha station diary shows that the Padgha police handed Mulla over to the Crime Branch “for investigation in the Mulund blasts,” but his actual arrest date has been shown as June 9, 2003 - 35 days after. The report had observed, “Mulla’s detention during this period was illegal, unauthorised. There is clear probability that the investigating agency did not want to make Mulla an accused, but a witness.” The HC too, in July 2008, had indicted the Mumbai police on the basis of this report. However, the illegal detention theory first came up, when brother-in-law Nachan filed an RTI application, which disclosed how Padwal had allegedly written a letter to Padgha police on May 5 to hand over Mulla’s custody, of which a diary entry too was made. Mulla’s lawyer Mubin Solkar then sought a judicial inquiry on this basis. While Mulla’s fiancee is still waiting to marry him, the State has sought a stay on the bail order for four weeks to file an appeal against it before the apex court. “The clinching judicial inquiry report and the RTI disclosure, laying bare his illegal detention, have come to Mulla’s rescue. The inquiry may not prove his innocence, though it surely does not prove his guilt. The prosecution’s only allegation against Mulla is of driving other accused to Mahuli Hills, where they would allegedly undertake arms training,” said Solkar.

Rs 40 lakh: Cost of one extradition attempt of Quattrocchi

PTI, Feb 21, 2010, 01.47pm IST

NEW DELHI:

A single attempt of the CBI to get Bofors kickback

case accused Ottavio Quattrocchi extradited from

Argentina in 2007 made a dent of over Rs 40 lakh to

the exchequer.

The agency sent two of its senior officials twice to
get the elusive Italian businessman from the Latin American
country in 2007 but failed in its attempt as it could not produce
proper legal documents before the court there.


CBI, which faced flak for its unsuccessful attempts to
bring Quattrocchi to India for standing trial in the case,
spent Rs 40.14 lakh on the trips to Argentina on two
officials which includes expenses on their visits, fees
of the local counsel, translation charges, transportation and
expenditure on boarding and lodging, an RTI reply from the agency says.

RTI applicant Abhishek Shukla had sought the details of
all the foreign visits made by CBI teams during the probe
of Bofors kickback case along with the expenditure but the
agency did not give any details other than the Argentina visit.

"During the last five years (since January 2005), a team of two
CBI officers had made two trips to Argentina in the year 2007
for 25 and eight days respectively in connection with the extradition
of Ottavio Quattrocchi from Argentina in Bofors case," the agency said in its reply.

RTI Act not being implemented: Aruna Roy

 

Express News Service

First Published : 21 Feb 2010 04:34:00 AM IST

BANGALORE:  “In the present political climate, it is 
becoming increasingly difficult to take informed choices,” 
said Magsaysay award winner and leading RTI activist 

Aruna Roy on Saturday.At the 2nd Asia Pacific Conference

of Community Radio Broadcasters at United Theological College.

 

Aruna Roy said, “Our home minister asks the civil 
society to take an informed choice on Operation Green
Hunt, however, when the freedom of entry to these places
are restricted, how is it possible to take an informed choice?”
she asked.Roy said that when there is large-scale displacement
and extermination of people, there is bound to be suspicion on the
Centre’s actions.

She said, “The home minister fails to understand that there are 
people who are neither part of the Naxals nor of Salwa Judum.” 

Roy said that atrocities are being systematically committed against
the Dalits in India, “but unfortunately they find little space in the media today.” 

Roy said, “It is unfortunate that even though the RTI Act 
has been in place since 2005, it is still not being implemented fully.”

Section 4 of the act has not been implemented at all, she said.Editor of
Dalit Voice VT Rajshekar Shetty, said the Dalit community has never
been able to be a part of this technology (community radio). 
He said it is untouchable, unthinkable and inaccessible for them.

Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan said, 
“RTI Act is not about corruption but about questioning power.”
We also need to understand information in a much wider sense.
“Information is also voice,” he added.The conference was attended 
by around 240 delegates from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Philippines,
Cambodia and several other Asian countries.
‘Welfare benefits not reaching beneficiaries’High court Judge, 
Justice DV Shylendra Kumar, on Saturday said that the benefits of the
various welfare schemes introduced by the state government and the
Centre are not reaching the beneficiaries.

He was speaking at the
workshop on ‘Right to Information Act for the principals, lecturers
and students of law colleges’ at Nyaya Degula, as part of the legal
literacy programme of the Karnataka State Legal Services
Authority.

Kumar said that awareness should be created among
law students about the RTI Act regarding how the provisions of the
act can be used as a tool and as an effective machinery to fight corruption.