PIO Hits Back, Files RTI on Activist!

RTI Activist Mr Tapil Kumar, Resident of Shahpur-Qutub, District Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, got the shock of his life when the Mr Surendra Pal Singh, Public Information Officer (PIO), Nagar Panchayat, Harduaganj, retaliated and filed an RTI on him by sending a postal order of Rs 10 along with six questions!

Mr Kumar had posed queries related to assets of the husband of Chairman of the Nagar Panchayat and this did not go down well with the PIO.

PIO says “File destroyed”? Use this RTI format, based on Public Records Act, to expose lies

Dear fellow activists,

DOWNLOAD WORD FILE OF RTI APPLICATION FORMAT: http://tinyurl.com/RTIformat1

Public Information Officers sometimes falsely say that the file or document sought by you has been destroyed or disposed of. However, they cannot support this statement with evidence. Now you can use the Public Records Act & Rules to demand evidence or to expose improper and unlawful disposal.

Central Public Records ACT 1993 (Section 9) and Maharashtra Public Records Act 2005 (Sec 8) lay down strict terms & conditions, and procedure to be followed before destroying any government document. Public Records RULE no 9 (of both Centre & State) says that no public record shall be destroyed without being recorded, reviewed and properly documented. Public Records Act Sec 10 (Maharashtra Sec 9) states that improper destruction, defacement etc. is punishable with 5 years imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine.

By demanding details of the procedure by which this document or file was supposedly disposed of, you can create pressure on government departments to disclose information. Ask for the following details:

1) Name & designation of the persons who destroyed/disposed of the above-mentioned Public Records.

2) Name & designation of your department’s Records Officer appointed as per Public Records Act and Rule 3 of Public Record Rules

3) Pages of Standing Guard file (maintained by Records Officer as per Rule 4) which refers to the document or file that has supposedly been disposed off

4) List of destroyed records maintained as per Rule no. 9(3)

5) Report, log-book and other records of burning or shredding in the presence of Records Officer

6) Half-yearly report furnished by Records Officer to Director General or Head of Archives as per Rule no. 9(4), especially the reviewing and weeding record.

7) All correspondence with reference to the above-mentioned destruction and disposal of public records

MARATHI & ENGLISH SPEAKERS PLEASE NOTE: The Maharashtra Act & Rules are almost exact translation of the Union Public Records Act & Rules. So, it will be sufficient if you can read and understand one of them. But take care while citing Section numbers of the Act, which are slightly different e.g. Section 10 (Penalties) in Union Act corresponds to Section 9 in Maharashtra Act.

MARATHI:

1. Maharashtra Public Records Act 2005 http://tinyurl.com/MarathiPRact

2. Maharashtra Public Records RULES 2007 http://tinyurl.com/MarathiPRrules

ENGLISH:

3. Central Public Records Act 1993 http://tinyurl.com/EnglishPRact

4. Central Public Records RULES 1997 http://tinyurl.com/EnglishPRrules

Friends, please study the Public Records Act & Rules, and start using them. They will be as useful as the RTI Act 2005, because they will enable RTI activists to become more effective!

Warm Regards

Krish

9821588114

HT & The Hindu: Police & Information Commissions endanger RTI Activists

Gujarat, Maharashtra not safe for RTI Activists

Hindustan Times, Mumbai: The murder of Amit jethwa, an RTI activist in Gujarat, has brought into the focus the fact that these crusaders are constantly living under danger or being harmed and killed. Interestingly, Gujarat and Maharashtra lead in terms of number of killings of such activists.

http://www.box.net/shared/26qr48kjj2

In fact, Maharashtra, which boasts of being a safe state, has had four instances of activists being murdered, the most gruesome being the killing of Satish Shetty in January in Pune. Shetty had been crusading against the local builders. Shetty was hacked to death near his house when he was out for a morning walk.

Apart from Shetty, Arun Sawant was murdered in Badlapur on February 26, Vithal Gite was murdered in Beed on April 21 and Datta Patil, an activist from Kolhapur, was murdered on May 31. Gujarat has seen two such killings, while Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have had one incident of activists being murdered.

G R Vora, a Mumbai-based activist against corruption and encroachment, told Hindustan Times that he faces constant threats from encroachers and builders. “In January, the police commissioner D Shivanandan issued a circular asking every police station to treat complaints made by activists very seriously, but nothing has been done so far,” Vora lamented.

He said that activists face danger as people from Information Commissioners’ office leak their names to people against whom they are fighting.

Additional Director General (Law & Order) K P Raghuvanshi said that state government had given strict instructions for providing security to activists.

Delhi Activists’ rally on Monday

Denouncing the death of Amit Jethwa on July 20, Delhi’s RTI fraternity has decided to hold a protest rally on Monday to call for strict implementation of laws to protect whistleblowers. Jethwa, who exposed the mining mafia via the RTI, was shot in Ahmedabad on July 20 near the Gujarat High Court.

In March, activist Mohit Sharma, a Dilshad Garden resident, had alleged that two MCD officers had threatened to murder him for having sought information under the RTI Act in connection with certain illegal construction in Shahdara (North) Zone.

Initially, the police had refused to lodge an FIR, but media pressure ensured that an FIR was lodged and the officials concerned were punished.

The Hindu: 8 RTI activists killed in 7 months

With the cold-blooded murder of Right to Information (RTI) activist Amit Jethwa near the Gujarat High Court in Ahmedabad this past Tuesday, the number of such killings of whistleblowers has gone up to eight just this year alone. The Congress-ruled Maharashtra tops the list with four killings, followed by the BJP-ruled Gujarat with two.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/article531112.ece

The murdered RTI activists were: Datta Patil of Kolhapur (Maharashtra), killed on May 31; Vitthal Gite of Beed district, Maharashtra, on April 21; Sola Ranga Rao of Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh, on April 11; Arun Sawant of Badlapur, Maharashtra, on February 26; Shashidhar Mishra of Begusarai, Bihar, on February 14; Vishram Laxman Dodiya of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on February 11; and Satish Shetty of Pune, Maharashtra, killed on January 13.

RTI activist Krishnaraj Rao points out that after every murder the respective State Government gave a standard reply: “Matter is under investigation. We will find the culprits.” He alleges that this is nothing but eyewash. In most cases, the top brass knew exactly what was going on. “By not penalising slippery public information officers and not compelling evasive public authorities to provide information, the State Information Commissioners too blunt the RTI activist's sword and prolong his battle for years, until somebody gets him in the end,” he complains.

Meanwhile, various NGOs and human rights organisations are planning to undertake a rally from ITO in New Delhi this coming Monday at 6 p.m. to condemn the brutal killing of Amit Jethwa.

Warm Regards,
Krish
98215 88114