Newmai News Network
Kohima | August 19
The Right to Information (RTI) Act was enacted in 2005 by the government of India after it was introduced in December 2004. But even to this day, the effectiveness of the Act in Nagaland is still a long way from being satisfactory. Is the reason behind this ineffectiveness due to the ignorance of the people about the Act or is it due to the fact that the departments of the government are ignoring applications of people seeking information and not responding positively and within the stipulated time?
On its part, the state government has reiterated proper implementation of the RTI Act 2005 while taking note that many departments were ignoring the Act and information sought are not replied positively and within the stipulated date.
An office memorandum issued by commissioner & secretary, department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms, reiterated that the RTI, 2005 adopted by state government needs to be adhered to and implemented by all departments. It stated that Section 5 and 9 has directed all government departments/corporations to designate offices as Appellate Authority/Public Information Officer (PIO) and Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO). Whenever any appointed/nominated appellate authorities, PIOs and APIOs are transferred/retired from their respective departments, the responsible departments are to re-appoint or nominate other appellate authorities, PIOs and APIOs respectively, according to the memorandum.
Under Section 4(1) (B) of the Act, departments and public sector undertakings of the state are required to prepare and publish a manual of the departments giving the particulars of the organization, powers and duties, rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records held by it, directory of its offices and employees and particulars of all plans, programmes of the department and so on, the memorandum stated.
All departments are also directed to prepare an annual report, under Section 25 (1) (2) (3) of the Act and submit to the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), which the CIC will place during the assembly session, said a DIPR report. In another circular, the P&AR department has highlighted the decision of the High Court of Bombay at Goa, dated April 3, 2008 in Writ Petition No. 419 of 2007 in the case of Dr. Celsa Pinto Vs. Goa State Information Commission under the RTI Act, 2005, with regard to the definition of the term ‘information.’
The relevant part of the judgment stated that “The definition cannot include within its fold answers to the question ‘why’ which would be same thing as asking the reason for a justification for a particular thing. The public information authorities cannot expect to communicate to the citizen the reason why a certain thing was done or not done in the sense of a justification because the citizen makes a requisition about information. Justifications are matters within the domain of adjudicating authorities and cannot properly be classified as information.”
While speaking as the resource person at a one day seminar on RTI Act at Dimapur, CIC Nagaland, P. Talitemjen, IAS said that the Act is a powerful weapon and it should not be abused or misused. He pointed out that government is for transparency and accountability towards the public which is why the need for RTI Act was necessitated. Elaborating on the RTI Act, the CIC explained about Section 3 of the Act which empowered any citizen to derive any sort of information from any department except some departments like Defense, CBI, etc., while Section 4 of the Act stated that any information asked have to be given. The CIC also enlightened the gathering about the procedures on how to go about and file the application and various sections attached with it. He also informed that the Administrative Training Institute (ATI) was deputed to train government officials on the Act and process is going on to translate the Act into all the languages of the sixteen tribes of Nagaland.
It may be mentioned that the campaign for the right to information was started by a group of workers in a village in Rajasthan when they were not paid by the government for work done during a famine. They formed a citizen group, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). This group was supported by social activists like Aruna Roy and the press, and led to the formation of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) in 1996.
The NCPRI and the Press Council of India formulated an initial draft of a right to information law in 1996. The government introduced the Freedom of Information Bill in 2002. In August 2004, the NCPRI suggested a set of amendments to the Freedom of Information Act, 2002. The National Advisory Council (NAC) endorsed many of these proposals, and the government introduced the Right to Information Bill in December 2004. The law was enacted in 2005.
