Wakf, Gurdwara, Cricket Managers To Comply With RTI

New Delhi, Nov 19 (UNI) Wakfs, Gurdwara managements, Cricket boards and Cooperative bodies are among entities accountable under the Right To Information Act and ought to take steps to comply, experts have stressed.

Such an entity is public authority and required to comply, Chief information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said in reply to queries from audience at a seminar on The Judiciary, The Legislature and The Right To Information Act.

The participants at the seminar in New Delhi Friday night included Rajya sabha Secretary General Yogendra Narain, Justice A K Sikri and People's RTI Campaign spokesman Shekhar Singh.

Habibullah and Narain pointed out that a body set up by or under the Constitution or by any law made by Parliament or State Legisature or even government notification constituted a public authority.

The definition also included any Non-Governmental Organisation or body owned, controlled or ''substantially financed'' by the government, they said.

''All citizens have the right to obtain 'information' from any 'public authority','' Habibullah said, adding that every such authority has a duty to ''maintain all its records'' and publish the ''particulars of its organisation, functions and duties.'' Habibullah said every public authority must appoint Public Information Officers to deal with requests for information and give ''reasonable assistance'' to information seekers.

He said such requests would ordinarily be in writing but, where this is not possible, the PIO ''may render all reasonable assistance to the person making the request orally to reduce it in writing.'' Narain noted that the Indian RTI was enforced within 90 days of its passage by Parliament-- unlike, for instance, in Britain, which took five years to put its act into force after enactment.

Speaking of its utility, he said the House Secretariat had received 105 applications and six appeals since September 2005 and disposed all of.

Most of these were on administrative matters-- postings, transfers, purchases-- Rajya Sabha Members' assets, liabilities or misuse of official accommodation, and Bills or such issues as impeachment of High Court Judges, he said.

He suggested modifying the Official Secrets Act and substituting it with an Official Access Act.

Addressing a concern that information obtained under the Act may be of little use considering delays in adjudication and therefore justice, Singh said access to data and consequent exposure is often enough to shame wrong-doers.

He cited how an elderly woman trying to join her son abroad was approached by touts everytime she visited passport office-- until she handed in her request for status under the RTI Act.

''Her RTI application was not taken, but she was given her passport the same day,'' Singh told audience, evoking an applause.

Speakers also criticised high fees citizens exercising RTI are required to pay-- Rs 500 in case they apply to the Delhi High Court, for instance-- and soft treatment of violators.

Justice Sikri indicated that revised rules were on the way and would be placed on the official High Court Website in a few days.

Asked afterwards about punishing offenders, one participant recalled that an early draft of the Act would have empowered the Information Commission to impose fines and up to five years imprisonment-- but it fell prey to bureaucratic imperatives.

About introducing tougher penalties now, he said that would depend on the ground experience.

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