NAPM condemns attempts to dilute the RTI Act

NAPM condemns attempts to dilute the RTI Act

In a meeting of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Right to Information (RTI) Campaign of National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) held at Darul-Shafa, Lucknow today participants from 16 districts strongly condemned the move by the State Government to exclude certain areas like information related to appointment of Governor, Ministers, High Court Judges, code of conduct for Ministers and letters written by the Governor to the President from the the purview of the RTI Act. The government had earlier taken out the department of civil aviation from the purview of the Act. These tampering with the RTI Act are against the letter and spirit of the Act and State Government is not authorized to do these. Under Section 24(4) of the RTI Act the State Government can only consider intelligence and security organization for exemption from this Act. The action of the State Government is also against the article 256 of the Constitution.

The notifications issued by the State Government taking out five subjects and the department of civil aviation from the purview of the RTI Act will be challenged in the court of law as well as state wide public demonstrations organized on 15th June, 2009. In Lucknow the demonstration will take place outside the Vidhan Sabha.

In addition a national level meeting will be organized to condemn the action of the State Government as well as to highlight the laxity in implementation of the RTI Act by the Public Information Officers, First Appeal Authorities and the Information Commission of the State. Numerous applicants who attended the meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the state of affairs of implementation of the RTI Act in the State.

SR Darapuri, Izhar Ahmad, Keshav Chand, Jayashankar, Arvind Murti, Mahendra Singh Rathore, Urvashi Sharma, Himanshu Swarnkar, Mahendra Pratap Singh, Munnalal Shukla, Akhilesh Saxena, Ajay Patel, Neelkamal, Rambabu, Ashok Bharti, Rajesh Maurya, Prem Kumar, Vishwesh, Sandeep Pandey

National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), Uttar Pradesh
Contact: Bobby Ramakant, 9839073355, Arvind Murti, 9839835032