RTI to the rescue of Amdavadis

Mirror highlights fewsuccess stories that may not be of public interest but cases of injustice,personal vendetta or simple lacuna in govt functioning

The Right to Information has be come an effective tool for citizens to bring to light the inade quacies in the government functioning and seek justice.

There are Amdavadis who have got justice after getting information under RTI, but there are many others whose cases have been disposed of or they have been made to run from department to department for information but to no avail.

LABOURER GOT JUSTICE

Ashoke Rathod, a daily wage labourer for a nursery with the Forest Department was denied permanent job despite adhering the rule. The rule states that a person working for 240 days annually for 10 years should be made permanent. However, when the department denied him a job, he appealed in the Labour Court. The department told the court that on the last year of his application, he had worked for 239 days. Shocked, Rathod had no option but to apply for RTI seeking all the data of his roster.

After years of trying when he received that year's roster, it was revealed that he had worked 14 days extra and applied at Gujarat High Court which ordered the Labour Court to review his petition. “Finally on August, 2014, the court issued a restatement that I should be made permanent and provided with all the benefits that I didn't receive in the past 15 years due to lack of evidence,“ said Rathod.

LAND GRABBERS EXPOSED

Pankaj B Mehta, a 57-year-old businessman and resident of Vishwarekha Society, Jivraj Park raised his voice against illegal land grabbing in his society. He took the RTI way to collect evidence against the land grabbers who reside in building number 22 and 9.Through RTI he sought the plan of the two buildings from the Zilla Vikas Adhikari and AMC and found that the original plan provided by the Zilla Vikas Adhikari differed from AMC.“The resident of building 9 had illegal ly taken 85 square yard from the common road and the other resident had grabbed around 200 square yard common plot into his building,“ said Mehta.

With this evidence he approached the Town Development Office. The department replied on October 20 which states that they are investigating the matter.

HUGE BACKLOG OF APPEALS, COMPLAINTS

A recent study by RTI Assessment and Advocacy Group (RaaG) and Samya Centre for Equity Studies revealed that how poorly the Act has been implemented in the Gujarat.

Till December 31, 2013, more than 8,000 RTI appeals and complaints were pending. Further, the monthly disposal in the state is 898 which is very less compared to Maharashtra (2,560) and Karnataka (1,027). Another interesting fact, it takes 9 months in the state to hear an appeal.

Moreover, 65% of the cases received are disposed of in the state. Harnesh Pandya of Janpath, an NGO creating awareness on the RTI Act highlighted several reasons for the long pending list of applications.“In around 30% cases, government bodies deny providing proactive disclosure of information which forces people to opt for RTI,“ he said.

In around 4,000 cases, the first appeal gets rejected which leads to deliberate delay. “To address this delay, government needs to enforce the law more efficiently. Information commissioner needs to charge sheet officers who refuse to provide prompt and timely information,“ Pandya said.