Sweet revenge: babu's turn to bribe

The Right to Information Act was intended to curb corruption, but it is alleged that there have been occasions when it has been misused, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 24, 2007, 03:57:45 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Right to Information Act was intended to curb corruption. But it seems there have been occasions when it has been misused to promote corruption, according to watchdog body Central Information Commission.

The commission observed in a recent order that there have been cases where it suspected that government officials, to avoid paying penalties, had bribed RTI applicants to withdraw their complaints.

Information Commissioner OP Kejriwal made the observation while hearing a complaint against the Regional Passport Office, Delhi. He suspected the complainant Sunder Lal was induced to change his stance.

"The commission in such cases, becomes an indirect party for promoting corruption -- the very phenomenon the RTI Act and the commission are supposed to curb and contain," Kejriwal said in his order on May 18.

In July 2006, Lal had sought a reply to 12 queries from the passport office under the RTI Act. The Act stipulates that the information has to be given within 30 days. Lal filed a complaint in January 2007 saying he had not heard from the passport office.

But when the commission started hearing his case on May 15, Lal said he had received the information within the deadline. Kejriwal suspected a deal and asked Lal for documentary proof. Lal replied that the information had been provided verbally. "The cat is out of the bag," Kejriwal said in his order.

"It is clear that there has been a tacit understanding between the two parties based on some kind of gratification," Kejriwal said. He noted that both parties had gained: one got the money and the other escaped paying a fine, which could be up to Rs 25,000.

Later, Lal admitted before the commission that he got no information from the passport office. The Passport Officer Gloria Kumar had no answer when asked to explain the reasons for the delay in providing the information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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