Govt cites technicality, denies information under RTI

HUBLI: If you thought that "the dog ate my homework" was the lamest excuse anyone can come up with, wait. The state government can do better. It
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has rejected an RTI application, saying the postal orders were bought long ago!

An RTI application by `The Times of India' had sought to know information on the total loan taken by the government and the principal and interest paid by it to lending agencies like the World Bank. However, the application has been returned, saying the Indian Postal Orders (IPOs) that were submitted along with it towards the Rs 10 fee for obtaining information, were purchased long ago __ nine years ago, to be precise. These can't be encashed now and therefore, the government cannot give the information sought in the RTI application.

However, the IPOs of face value of Rs 5 each were bought at the Hubli post office on January 5, 2010. The application was sent by courier on January 7 and the department of finance received it on January 8. The official reply issued by under secretary finance (fiscal reforms and computer cell) J V Chandrashkear states that the post master of Vidhana Soudha post office had returned them saying they were bought on January 5, 2001.

"The only way to explain this is to find out whether the postal stamps on the IPOs read as 2001, and not 2010. There was no other reason why the government should reject an RTI application," a finance department officer said, requesting anonymity. Rejecting an RTI application is a sensitive issue and the government would want the postal department take a decision on the encashment of the IPO or otherwise, he added.

IS IT A DELAY TACTIC?

Though the RTI Act has a provision for providing information free of cost to the members of BPL families, there is no provision for receiving fees after the information is given to the applicant.

However, RTI activists feel the government could have ignored the technicalities about fees and provided the information. "The government should have been magnanimous enough to have provided the information first and then asked for fees. But government Public Information Officers (PIOs) don't do it as their mental make-up is to withhold or delay information and not give it readily," said J S D Pani of NGO Mahiti Hakku Jagruti Vedike.

The ideal reply from the finance department's PIO should have been: "The information sought under the RTI runs into so many pages and therefore, you need to pay an additional fee of Rs 2 per page. Along with that, please send the statutory fee of Rs 10 as the IPOs sent earlier were not encashed".

"However, returning the application citing the IPOs were old shows that the government is not interested in sharing the information. This clearly reflects the attitude of the PIOs," Pani said.

Pani even suspected that PIOs get some kind of training in rejecting or delaying RTI applications. "Such training helps them find reasons not to give information and not to give it away proactively," he claimed.

Director, postal services (north Karnataka), Dr Veena Kumari, said she would check whether the IPOs had wrong dates. However, she said chances of postal personnel stamping the IPOs with old dates were less. "We are usually careful while stamping IPOs. The date on the stamps is changed every day and every document is cross-checked for accuracy of the stamp," she added.