Activists demand no exemption for UP Lokayukta from the RTI Act

Activists demand no exemption for UP Lokayukta from the RTI Act

The Uttar Pradesh Campaign to Protect RTI (UPCPRI), the voice of
majority of RTI Activists of Uttar Pradesh ,the RTI wing of
YAISHWARYAJ Seva Sansthan, a Lucknow-based NGO organized a meeting of
RTI activists in Lucknow on Tuesday, and put forth this demand.

NOTED SOCIAL activist Usha Sharma, Vishnu Datt Mishra, Prabhuta
Mishra, Babita Singh, and RTI activists, lawyers, enginners,
professors, retired government officials and others, took part in the
meeting. Urvashi Sharma, Coordinator of UPCPRI, chaired the meeting.


Inaugurating the meeting, Sharma said that the Uttar Pradesh
government seems baffled by the use of the right to information in
rooting out corruption in every walk of life so it has once again
striking back - to weaken the seven-year old RTI act. The Samajwadi
Party-led Government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) has launched a battle
against this law by keeping UP Lokayukta out of the RTI ambit.

Prabhuta Mishra said that as we all know that on July 31,2012 Uttar
Pradesh Cabinet decided to notify the Lokayukta as an exempt
organization under Section 24(4) of the Right to Information Act (RTI
Act) and put it in second schedule. She added that the cabinet
decision is contrary to government's promise to strengthen the
Lokayukta.

In its election manifesto, Samajwadi Party had promised to take steps
to strengthen the office of the Lokayukta, but instead of making it
more transparent, the government first increased the tenure of the
Lokayukta to eight years, then it authorized the Lokayukta to penalize
persons who level frivolous charges against any public servant. Now,
with the cabinet approving a proposal to keep the Lokayukta outside
the ambit of the RTI Act, the activists have every reason to doubt
about further dilution and politicization of the Lokayukta
organization.

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"The UP government's decision to keep the office of Lokayukta outside
the RTI Act was not at all needed as RTI Act itself provides
protection to the provisions of the UP Lokayukta Act 1975. UP
Lokayukta office was free not to provide information about the
ongoing investigation under the Right to Information Act also. Section
8(1)(g) and 8(1)(h) of RTI act takes proper care of section 10 and
section 15 of the Lokayukta Act. The section 10 of the UP Lokayukta
Act states that Investigation to be conducted by the Lokayukta or his
deputy should be conducted in private, and in particular, the identity
of the complainant and of the public servant affected by the
investigation should not be disclosed to the public or
the press whether before, during or after the investigation. The
Section 15 of the Act states that any information or any evidence
obtained by the Lokayukta office in the course of investigation should
be confidential. keeping UP Lokayukta out of RTI ambit is one of the
many attacks being launched against the transparency regime by the
very system which the RTI Act seeks to reform," added Vishnu Datt
Mishra.