Power changes hand, iron curtain from RTI remain

New Delhi: The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is what can be said judging by a PMO reply given to an RTI applicant.

In April last year, applicant retired Commodore Lokesh Batra was refused disclosure of steps taken by the Prime Minister’s Office to proactively part with information as mandated under the RTI.

That prompted Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister, to take a potshot at the PMO questioning the UPA for taking credit for RTI even as the top office was denying information.

Three weeks after Mr Modi took over as the Prime Minister, his office gave a similar reply in June this year refusing information to the RTI applicant on similar grounds.

Read: CBI wants exemption from RTI

CPIO S.E. Rizvi had then questioned the usefulness of giving the applicant details about the list of files related to RTI Act implementation which are maintained under the ES-2 Sec-tion of the PMO and other details.

He had refused to disclose information saying the query would fall in the category of one “where the applicant has not specified how the information is useful to him either personally, socially or nationally”.

Under the Right to Information Act, an RTI applicant is not required to give any reasons while seeking information.

Mr Batra posed a similar question to the PMO on May 19 seeking details of the files maintained by it related to the implementation of RTI.

But he has now got the same answer from Mr Rizvi which was given to him last year.

He regretted that despite change of government, “nothing seems to have changed in the PMO”.