Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Don’t dilute RTI Act, HC tells officials

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad,June 23: Justice Goda Raghuram of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Tuesday warned the authorities not to play tricks to dilute the Right to Information Act if they are serious about continuing in service.

While hearing two different petitions, the judge described the RTI Act as one of the finest pieces of legislations. He observed that the authorities are denying access to the information sought by petitioners. The judge said that the citizen is the master of the Republic and officials are his servants.

Mr P. Brahmanna, a chartered accountant, had filed one of the writs, challenging the attitude of the public information officer in the Hyderabad Urban Land Ceiling office in furnishing the information sought by him.

Mr S.V. Bhatt, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that the authorities regularised the land of his client in another’s name. He said that an irrelevant person made a declaration before the ULC officers and they accepted it and regularised the land in favour of that person.

He submitted that when the petitioner sought the details of the land and the consequent declaration under the RTI Act, the authorities started playing tricks to avoid giving information.

Mr Bhatt told the judge that after the petitioner approached the High Court, the authorities claimed that the entire material was dispatched to the petitioner by post. He said that the post never reached him.

Justice Raghuram sought to know from government counsel what was the procedure followed by the authorities when sending the information under the RTI Act.

The judge posed several questions to the government counsel: Do you send it by registered post?; Do you collect the charges for the papers you send?; And what is the procedure being followed till now in the ULC office?

The judge told counsel to produce the entire record before the court. He also directed the authorities to file a counter-affidavit on the action they have taken in this case by Wednesday and posted the matter for further hearing to June 25.

In another case, the judge sought to know the action taken by the authorities in furnishing details of assignments, list of beneficiaries and other details to one Mr Yeddu Nagesh of Ranga Reddy district

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