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Q14. You are a Public Information Officer (PIO) in a government department. You are aware that the RTI Act, 2005 envisages transparency and accountability in administration. The act has functioned as a check on the supposedly arbitrarily administrative behaviour and actions. However, as a PIO you have observed that there are citizens who filed RTI applications not for themselves but on behalf of such stakeholders who purportedly want to have access to information to further their own interests. At the same time there are those RTI activists who routinely file RTI applications and attempt to extort money from the decision makers. This type of RTI activism has affected the functioning of the administration adversely and also possibly jeopardizes the genuineness of the applications which are essentially aimed at getting justice. What measures would you suggest to separate genuine and non-genuine applications? Give the merits and demerits of your suggestions. (250 Words, 20 Marks)
Tag: Case Study
Answer:
Case Summary:
Being a PIO in a government department, I observed that there are citizens who filed RTI not for themselves but on behalf of stakeholders who want to have access to information to further their own interests. There are other RTI activists who file RTI and attempt to extort money from the decision makers. This type of RTI activism has affected the functioning of the administration adversely.
Stakeholders Involved in the case:
- I, as a Public Relations Officer in a government department.
- Citizens of India.
- RTI Activists
The RTI Act has played a major role in bringing transparency and accountability in the system. It has allowed a common citizen to seek answers to questions from the government and scrutinize the decision making. The Act has also helped in exposing serious scams as well. However, it has also been seen that there is a spurt in the filing of the RTI application for their private interest. But these RTIs have also been used for the blackmailing of the officers.
Measures to separate genuine and non-genuine applications:
- Formation of a task force: Form a taskforce to look into the issue before filing the RTI. Moreover, it should ask the RTI applicant to disclose his/her personal or professional interest.
- Merits: Scrutinising the people who are involved in misuse of RTI and other wrongdoings.
- Demerits: This will make the process more tedious for the genuine RTIs and it will also prevent the honest RTI activists from filing applications.
- Maintain Records of Activists: Need to maintain the past records of activists. When any activists file a RTI, it will be easy for the authority to identify the purpose of RTI filings.
- Merits: Help to find out the actual reason for RTI filings based on the previous filling pattern.
- Demerits: This is going to add another burden of task with the officials.
- Changes in fee: Some changes in charges and fees associated with providing information can be made in the law. There should be no changes in the fee for initial filing of the applications. But if they are found to be false or serving the vested interests of someone in later investigations, then a suitable monetary fine may be imposed.
- Merit: It will act as a restraint on insincere and dishonest applicants and hit others economically for wrong doing.
- Demerit: It will create a divide and discrimination between rich and poor people. Economically well off and non genuine applicants will not hesitate to file applications while the poor will be discouraged to do so.
The above steps will help in segregating genuine applications from the non genuine ones and will help take the effective actions accordingly. However in the given question, there are RTI activists who are attempting to extort money from the decision makers. It indicates the systemic flaws in the government department itself. Besides it points to the fact that decision makers want to hide the information as it might expose the wrongdoings in the governance. Therefore the governance itself should be reformed and transparency and accountability should never be forsaken. The genuine applicants must be provided with the requisite information. Better option would be to play a proactive role and put most of the information that is not exempted under the act in the public domain for easy accessibility by the public.
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