See through our eyes, not your ears.
Bihar govt amends RTI rules, activists annoyed
PATNA — Opposition parties and activists have slammed restrictions imposed on the Right to Information (RTI) Act by the Bihar government, saying the move is aimed at shielding corruption.
The opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Congress and Left parties are up in arms against the changes.
“Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is hell bent on discouraging people from seeking information but we will expose him,” RJD leader Ram Kirpal Yadav said.
Congress state president Anil Kumar Sharma said the changes were anti-constitutional. “We will take this issue to the people,” he said.
Convenor of the Bihar Suchna Adhikar Manch Parveen Amanullah said the changes were in violation of the fundamental rights of people who were free to seek information from the government.
“The move is anti-people, it will serve the interests of government officials only,” said Rupesh, an RTI activist.
The Bihar government made changes to the RTI Act Tuesday under which a person cannot seek more than one information in one application. Now a petitioner will have to pay Rs 10 per query whereas earlier several queries could be put through in one petition by paying Rs 10.
Besides, the government has now decided to charge a Below Poverty Line category information seeker if information runs into more than 10 pages. But it will still be free if the number of pages is up to 10.
Deepak Kumar, principal secretary, personnel and administrative reforms department, said the state government has approved the Bihar Right to Information Act (Amendment) Rules, 2009 seeking minor alterations in the RTI Act 2005.
“The changes were made to make RTI more effective and prevent its misuse. They were as per central government guidelines,” he said.
Ironically, the state government, last week launched a helpline for those seeking information under the RTI Act and said stern action would be taken against officials found guilty of harassing petitioners.
- AGENCIES
4 Responses to “Bihar govt amends RTI rules, activists annoyed”
The changing in Rti 2005 by Bihar govt is not good step to see present situation. Bihar is not a good literate state like southern,western and northan state of India. Govt. should have to take step that the peole would get information free in place of paying 10Rs. Per information until the people not understood their Right aginst govt. The purpose of rti is to take good governance. For a poor and illiterate state all amemnded by central govt can’t be good. Own thought and analysis over any topic is necessary.
Its a cursory fashion of working of Bihar Beurocrats and providing ammunition to opposition (Political Parties) to target the Government and creating a reasonable doubt in the mind of masses, who support and craves transperancy.
This ammendment per-se was not at all necessary as the Central Act has this provisions which no one in the Bihar Government has bothered to go through and sprung with so called amendment which is nothing but reiteration of already existing provision.
Section 6(1) of the RTI ACt provides that an applicant can make “a request” and the CPIO under Section 7(1) will disclose “a request”. Which clearly implies that applicant had paid fee for “a request”. In case in an application there are more than one request, the PIO is well within its right to consider the first rerquest as admissible and proceed to disclose that first information only. The subsequent information should also be directly connected with the first information and can be directly integrated with the first principal information required.
If the application contains more than one requests on various different topics, subject, or matter it can be outrightly dismissed after entertaining the first part only; as fees for other information has not deemed to have been paid under the Act.
The Buhar Babus have made their political bosses to commit this unnecessary blunder which otherwise not required at all.
Poor Home Work by Bihar Babus. Trouble for Ruling Political Parties.
Regret
Rajeev Bhardwaj
Its a very good move. By restricting number of information demanded per application , now the officer will have to look into the info need on case to case basis and can be hold responsible for refusing any information. Earlier officers were refusing to provide any information if any of the info needed were fond not covered or guaranteed by the act. Also there were instances of providing only part info. All this will increase answerbility of the officer.
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madan tiwary Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am
amendment in RTI rule by State Gov. to the extent of limiting the numer of question is highly deplorable. under RTI, it is the duty of the state to disseminate information in order to make the working of system transparent. and under section 28 of RTI ,power of removing difficulty is limited only to make rules for achievement of the goal of this act not to obstruct the right to seek information. instead of limiting the number of question, Govt. of bihar should had make it mandatory to put every documents online so that what ever information is required, can be obtained without even filing application. this amendment is use less as if some one willing to seek 50 information, he has to file 50 separate application now in that way this amendment will only cause financial burrden to the people willing to seek information and nothing more. this act was the single right given to the citizen to fight against corruption after independence, unfortunately it has been curtail by whom, who challenge to be the champion of democracy and has announced pension to all who were put behind bar during emergency.
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