Victimization of Rising Voices in India
Though the Right to Information Act in
India was passed in 2005 it provides inadequate safety and protection to the
person seeking information.
Right to Information is the power
bestowed to people to report any wrongdoings, mismanagement or corruption in
the system or functioning but RTI activists are the vulnerable human right
defenders in India. Most of the time RTI activists are individuals who act
alone following resentment or anger towards dishonesty or fraud they have
witnessed. Taking the route of RTI they seek to investigate the underlying
illegal activity which is kept undisclosed. These activists are common man and
they inhabit in the same society as those involved in wrongful activities.
There are cases where the corrupt officials or entities do not wish their
activities to be exposed and therefore resort to illegal harassment threatening
those who are seeking information and many a times even getting them
killed.
Undoubtedly, RTI Act has helped
expose cases of corruption; it has not been a cakewalk for the users who have
regularly been victimized for exposing wrongdoings in public offices. Around 75
harassment cases, 20 cases of murder and 45 cases of assaults have been
highlighted till 2007 but there are more which goes unregistered and unnoticed
by the media.
CASES OF VICIMIZATION
Several cases related to harassment
and victimization of RTI users as whistleblowers has been reported by the
media. RTI activists Lalit Mehta was brutally murdered in 2008 when he became a
threat to contractor lobby and corrupt government officials related to NREGA.
His mutilated body and a belt around his neck suggested he was strangled and
his face smashed to deform it beyond recognition. The police buried the body as
unidentified the same day and it was later exhumed by his colleagues and taken
to his native village, where his last rites were performed.
A bureaucrat and the RTI activist Rinku
Singh Rahi has been fighting corruption in his own department
and state-run schemes since 2009. He was denied access to information
and instead, an attempt on his life was made allegedly at the behest of
Principal Secretary Navtej Singh and other department officials during
the Mayawati government. He started a hunger strike in Lucknow hoping
that the Akhilesh Yadav’s Government would pay heed to his demands
for a reply on his pending RTI application; a criminal
investigation into the corruptions charges; and act against miscreants but
instead was admitted to a psychiatric ward. And who can forget the murder
of Amit Jethwa of Gujarat who used RTI to expose illegal mining in the Gir
Forest area. BJP MP Dinu Boga whom the Gujarat police has given clean chit
earlier was later arrested by the CBI. The unexplained deaths of RTI activists
and whistleblowers prove that the RTI Act has threatened many powerful,
unscrupulous powers that be.
An ex RTI activists on request of
anonymity confessed that he has been harassed by Ministry of Civil Aviation and
Airport Authority of India while saving areas outside the control of the
Ministry, AAI and GMR. Famous
RTI activists Subhash Agrawal too mentioned few incidents of abusive calls and
an effort to attack him and the Doordarshan camera-team by employees of
Municipal Corporation of Delhi. “There is one shocking episode where National
Green Tribunal (NGT) tried its level best to harass me for which strict-most
strictures were passed by Central Information Commission. CPIO at NGT on record
admitted that he himself was not satisfied with response he sent me under his
signature,” he added.
LAWS RELATED TO SEEKING INFORMATION
Cases of assault and harassments are seen more in
Gujarat because of the presence of maximum number of activists and CSOs.
Surprisingly, in Rajasthan there is only one Chief Information Commissioner and
not a single Information Commissioner, thus more than 8,000 cases have been piled
up on the desk. Agrawal says that things are entirely different in most of the States (except some
like Maharashtra) where practically speaking the RTI Act is non-existent. He
adds, “Maharashtra can be termed as one of the best States in implementation of
the RTI Act. However much depends on attitude of public authorities also.” According
to him corrupt authorities like municipal bodies in Delhi do not care at all
because they are least bothered about penalty being imposed on them as they
find it ‘profitable’ not responding to RTI petitions attracting maximum penalty
of Rs 25000. Others are public-authorities like Supreme Court which respond for
just sake of responding and avoid providing information.
The Whistle Blowers Protection Act,
2011 which was passed by the Parliament and received President’s assent on 9th
May, 2014 has not come to force till date. Cases of victimization of RTI users
as a whistle blower are constantly highlighted in the news but hardly anything
is done lawfully to protect their interests.
“In India identity of any whistle blower cannot be kept secret because
of the corrupt organization, police and politician's involvement and at times due
to interference of the media and far too many rival organizations wanting
to remain in limelight. One or the other is bound to reveal the identity
of the person blowing whistle,” says a former RTI activist.
The legal review of existing and
drafted laws regarding right to information, protection of human rights,
whistleblower protection and UN declaration on human rights covers generic law,
including the draft Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making
the Disclosures Act (Whistleblower Protection Bill), Protection of Human Rights
(PHR) Act, 1993, sectoral laws including Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973,
Indian Penal Code and Indian Evidence Act, case law, (e.g. court cases,
decisions of information commissions) besides parliamentary debates. RTI Act
and its rules should be uniform all over the country for all States and
competent authorities should remove confusions and misuse of power to harass
users of RTI Act, and as such there are two sections 27 and 28 of the RTI Act
which should be repealed. “One Nation, One Rule should be the motto for the RTI
Act in India,” quotes Agrawal.
(Part of this article was published in Bureaucracy Today Magazine)
