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| RTI being used as a tool for blackmailing | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 31: The much talked about Right to Information (RTI) Act has become a tool in the hands of blackmailers not only to harass and humiliate the officers but to settle their personnel scores with them. Though the Act was widely welcomed throughout the country after it came into being after a parliament enactment but it has many flaws as it makes the position of Government servants very awkward who are now answerable to any Tom, Dick and Harry.
After the enforcement of the Act in J&K over two years back the black mailers and exploiters have taken total undue advantage of the Act who force the officers to provide all liberty to them and incase an officer or head of the Department fails to give any leniency to the person , taking full advantage of the Act tries to black mail the officer by filing an RTI to seek varied information.
In this way instead of serving its rightful purpose the RTI Act has become a tool in the hands of blackmailers and exploiters to harass the officers and other employees in any government Department who refuse to toe their line. This has been a common practice now in the state where such blackmailers and exploiters taking full advantage of the Act either want to blackmail the Government employees and officers or force them to make compromise with them and work as per their dictates.
According to some experts the law has many flaws and during its enforcement these shortcomings were not taken into consideration. As any Tom, Dick and Harry is free to file an RTI in an Government office to seek reply to queries raised by him. There can be at a time number of such RTIs filed by various persons and the Information Officer appointed by the concerned Department is bound to reply within a stipulated time. This way the entire attention of the Department is diverted to reply the RTIs at the cost of the functioning of the Department.
This way the work in Government offices not only suffers but the employees are also subjected to lot of harassment and humiliation. It has been reported that in various offices some disgruntled persons who forced the officers and employees to act on their will when failed to motivate them took the advantage of RTI Act seeking information on the working of Department. Had the officers acted on the advice of these disgruntled elements then there would have been no problem for them. This has been a common problem and since the enforcement of this act in the state it is being used more for blackmail than making an improvement in the functioning of the Department or system.
The authorities at the helm of affairs should take a cognizance of the same and the lawmakers should also ponder over this issue. They must take all the pros and cons of the Act into consideration in view of the wrong advantage being taken out by these disgruntled elements of the Act. This way the Act will not improve the functioning of the Department but make it more inefficient and it will also increase the corruption in the offices as the officials and officers to save themselves from harassment form such elements will also keep a margin for them in official expenses.
The Chief information Commissioner of the State who is well versed with all the facts should also ponder over the issue and instead of making it easy for everyone to seek information under the RTI the Government should enhance fee for the same so that a person seeking such information can compensate for the time wasted to the Government in providing such information. |
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