An RTI activist has approached the State Information Commission seeking a directive to provide copies of documents related to the implementation of various projects by the State government.
The directive was sought on a complaint filed against the refusal of the State Public Information Officer to provide information on the projects.
In his complaint, D.B. Binu, RTI activist, said the Information and Public Relations Department had published a ‘progress report of Pinarayi Vijayan Government’ for the year 2016-17. The report, released by the Chief Minister, was available on the official website of the government. The report had mentioned the action plan for as many as 35 projects. Mr. Binu had sought information from the government in public interest.
The petitioner said the Information Officer had failed to furnish specific information on the projects.
“The officer had refused to provide information including details of implementation of 35 projects; the money spent on them; unspent money, and funds mobilised under each project,” he added. According to him, the Information Officer was duty-bound to provide information, and his failure to do so is a clear violation of the mandatory provisions of the RTI Act.
Voluntary disclosure
Mr. Binu pointed out that the Central Information Commission had made it clear that the objective of the RTI Act was to encourage voluntary disclosure of information which could obviate the need for filing RTI applications. For the record, the commission had directed all authorities to publish records as enumerated under Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act. It had also recommended that an archive be developed to include digitized records and information collected from various sources, to reduce the number of RTI applications.
