Notes on the Meeting held at Bombay Chartered Accountants’ Society – Lotus Room on Tuesday 20th October 2009.
Present: Mr. Shailesh Gandhi – Chief Information Officer, New Delhi; Mr. Narayan Varma – Ex-President, Bombay Chartered Accountant Society; Mr. Bhaskar Prabhu – Mahiti Adikhari Manch; Mr. Ameet Patel – President, Bombay Chartered Accountant Society; Mr. Dara Gandhy - Trustee, PCGT; Mr. Gerson da Cunha – Trustee, AGNI;
Mr. Anand Castellino – Vice President, Bombay Catholic Sabha; Mr. Krishnaraj Rao – The Brave Pedestrian; Staff of PCGT; Coordinators of AGNI; Members of Mahiti Adhikari Manch; and members of the Press.
Mr. Narayan Varma welcomed all and informed of the activities of BCAS. He added that RTI was a heart-felt endeavour of BCAS, Mahiti Adikhari Manch and PCGT. He then spoke of Mr. Shailesh Gandhi, an RTI activist now holding the office of Chief Information Officer in New Delhi. Mr. Gandhi had in the period of 13 months transformed the working of that office into one which has become efficient and effective. He reminded those present of the meeting at the IMC, where Justice Chandrachud had spoken of Mr. Gandhi as an example. The issue to be highlighted in today’s meeting would be understand the gravity of the intent of the Government wishing to amend the RTI. He then invited Mr. Gandhi to speak.
Mr. Shailesh Gandhi informed all that in one year he had cleared 5381 cases, whereas the national average was 600 cases. The highest individual effort previously was 2000 cases. He said that his collegue, Ms. Dikshit had cleared 3000 cases. Mr. Gandhi added that he had imposed penalties in 41 cases and collected fines amounting to 8 to 9 lakhs. He had 4 months back realized the importance of Section 4 and its compliance in curbing corruption. He had been issuing orders to the various Public Authorities to comply. He had asked the Food Authority to give the status of the applications and issue/non issue of Ration Cards. He had asked the 980 Government Schools to report on their notice boards on the status of grant of Rs.1000/- per student. He has requested 2 NGOs to report on the compliance. He was now hoping for a network of web volunteers, who would scrutinize 3 or 4 Public Authority websites and report.
Mr. Shailesh Gandhi then spoke on the subject of “Amendment to the RTI Act”. He informed that in 2006 the proposal to amend had been passed, but then withdrawn under public pressure. The President in her speech on 4th June 2009 had spoken on the need of amendment to the RTI Act. However, Mr. Gandhi said that two studies done earlier, one by Price Waterhouse for the Government and the second by NCPRI for the Citizens had recommended that no amendment was required. He added that today the Citizens were using the RTI without seeking assistance from Lawyers. Most of the applicants do not understand the Law and there would be confusion once the Act was amended. Mr. Gandhi informed that he had written to the Government on 9th June, 2009 that Section 2 should not be diluted and No addition to the exemptions listed in Section 8. The DOTP was seeking to make 2 member benches, thereby increasing the time that would be taken to clear the cases. He said that every requirement could be met by a notification or within the existing rules. He said that the amendment was sought for 2 reasons: 1) to stop frivolous and vexatious applications. He questioned on who should be the authority to decide and was this not an excuse to deny the citizen his right to information.
The second reason was to keep the discussions/communications that take place before arriving at decisions, out of public domain. Mr. Gandhi said that the right to know all information was important as Citizens sought participatory democracy.
In the Question/Answer session that followed, some queries regarding the functioning of the Public Authorities at the Central Level were asked.
In the Plan of Action to stop the amendment of the RTI Act, Krishnan Raj informed of the phonogram campaign costing Rs.27/- per telegram and he said that each citizen must send a telegram to all 4 decision makers: Ms. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, Mr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister and Mr. Prithviraj Chauhan, the Minister in charge of DOTP. Some of those present spoke of the actions taken in 2006 including the protest at August Kranti Maidan.
Gerson suggested that we should mount pressure on our elected representatives including the 6 MPs and the MLAs who would be elected. He said that 3 points need to be considered:
1. Mount Pressure on Elected Representatives
2. Create a National Consciousness
3. Circulate the email ids, contact numbers and addresses of all concerned.
Gerson added that a meeting of minds through the internet could first be made. Then Mumbai could host a National Meeting to protest the intended changes in the RTI Act.
Mr. Shailesh Gandhi said that it was a tragedy that the citizens were not using the RTI to unearth large Civil and Government irregularities. He also asked the RTI activists to make their applications short and focused.
Bhaskar said that the BMC has 600 PIOs and there were 600 appellate authorities. He pointed out the better hierarchy in Mazagaon Dock where there was a better system.
Mr. Ameet Patel gave the “Vote of Thanks” and informed that he would do everything in his powers to help achieve the goals of the RTI activists. He thanked Mr. Shailesh Gandhi for accepting the invitation to come to this meeting. He also thanked all present and requested them to partake of refreshments as the meeting was ended.
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