Government responds to RTI plea to reveal deliberations between Team Anna and Ministers
The government has agreed to make public the audio recordings of the proceedings of the Joint Drafting Committee constituted to frame the Lokpal Bill.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had earlier refused to put the committee's deliberations in the public domain, though the civil society members had demanded so.
The committee, comprising five members of Team Anna and an equal number of Cabinet Ministers, was formed on April 10 to finalise the draft of the Lokpal Bill. It included Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram, Veerappa Moily, Kapil Sibal and Salman Khursheed.
The civil society members are Anna Hazare, Justice (retired) N. Santosh Hegde, Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal.
Responding to a query filed by activist S.C. Agrawal under the Right to Information Act, the DoPT has said the audio proceedings of the meetings of the committee have now become available. “There are nine CDs and you may deposit the copying fee of Rs. 450 so that copies of the CDs can be supplied to you,” Amarjit Singh, Under Secretary of the DoPT, has said.
Welcoming the decision, Mr. Agrawal said he would deposit the money under protest on Monday because the information under an RTI query had to be provided free of cost if the response did not come within 30 days.
Mr. Agrawal filed the RTI application in June.
Earlier, responding to an RTI query, the DoPT said it required the Law Ministry nod to make public the audio recordings of the closed-door meetings between the government and Team Anna.
“The Joint Drafting Committee was constituted by a notification of the Ministry of Law and Justice, wherein the JDC was supposed to evolve its own procedure. It may be further noted that the matter relating to RTI queries on audio-recordings of the JDC has been referred to the Department of Legal Affairs in the Ministry of Law and Justice for clarification,” an RTI response from the DoPT said.
Comments:
One billion poor, very poor and not so poor people of our country are not interested to know the nitty grity of the lokpal bill. They are interested to see the result-"The Tree is known by the fruit it bears".
The politicians have woken up after 64 years of independence and that too after prodding from the judiciary and from the civil society.
they are still trying to find out the "Escape routes" for the corrupt- it is for every body to see.
The voters want to know what the 'honourable' parliamentarians have done in the last 64 years to stop the generation of 'black money', outflow of black money to foreign countries, retrieval of the black money, punishments of black marketeers, hoarders, unscrupulous traders and businessmen, tax evaders, non return of public money borrowed from scheduled banks by big guns, not solving any of the hundreds and thousands of 'high value' scams and the list is endless.
only a strong media can help change the situation. Are you listening?
"Welcoming the decision, Mr. Agrawal said he would deposit the money under protest on Monday because the information under an RTI query had to be provided free of cost if the response did not come within 30 days."
Mr.Agarwal quite correct in his statement above.When the UPA Govt itself flouts the rule of law(RTI act here),this Govt should be thrown in to the dust bin.We have a PM who has no control over the law of this land. Mr.Agarwal should fight & get back the amount deposited for the CD with all the costs with no delay
The proceedings of the Committee should have been VIDEO TAPED & shown LIVE to the people.
The very reluctance of the Government to VIDEO TAPE the proceedings show - Government is very UNCOMFORTABLE facing the CIVIL SOCIETY MEMBERS.
Now it seems only AUDIO TAPING was done.
Nobody knows about the clarity of the voices
Most of the conversation will be in either HINDI or ENGLISH.
I do not know how many Indians can even understand the audio tapes?
Finally, Why was there such a DELAY & HESITATION in releasing these AUDIO TAPES too?
What is the guarantee that these AUDIO TAPES have not been:
>docotored or
>Censored or
>Deliberately mixed with noise signals so that the dialogues are inaudible or incomprehensible.
If the government is honest and has nothing to hide it must broadcast live all discussions with Anna's team or any parliamentary committee meetings or discussions. Just allow 1 or 2 TV channels in, the govt wouldn't have to spend a penny on that account, unless somebody wants to make some money.
Oath of secrecy is an legacy of the colonial government. It does not fit in a democracy where it is peoples' rule. I suggest a public debate on this secrecy act.