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| Photo: G R Vora |
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RTI activists arrested in Mumbai for ‘rioting, hurt and assault’
(Nidhi Jamwal)
On the evening of May 19, the Mumbai police arrested 11 activists and jailed them for two days. Their crime: demanding a meeting with the chief state information commissioner (SIC), Suresh Joshi; and allegedly trespassing and creating ruckus at his office near Mantralaya.
The activists were arrested for unlawful assembly (Section 143 of the Indian Penal Act); joining or continuing in unlawful assembly after knowing it has been commanded to disperse (Section 145); rioting (Section 146); house trespass (Section 448); house trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint (Section 452); and assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty (Section 353).
Released on bail against a surety of Rs 20,000 each, the activists are anything but intimidated. “We will continue our fight for proper implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005,” said Krishnaraj Rao, one of the arrested.
It all started around 4.30 pm on May 19, when Srikant Prabhu, a 67-year-old veterinarian, had a second appeal hearing before Joshi. Prabhu was accompanied by activists G R Vora and Mohd Afzal. Gradually, more activists began to gather to press for proper implementation of the Act. Rao submitted a letter at Joshi’s office. It said if information commissioners implemented penal provisions of the Act in an arbitrary or mala fide manner, they could be taken to court and jailed. After submitting the letter, the activists asked Joshi’s assistant Kalpana Gavas for a meeting with the information commissioner.
“First Gavas denied a hearing. Later, she told us only five of us could meet Joshi,” said Rao. “We disregarded this and entered the courtroom and started observing the hearings. We requested Joshi for a brief meeting and he granted us five minutes.” Joshi told them henceforth he would meet activists only on the first Monday of each month. This was unacceptable to the activists, who claimed the list of things Joshi had promised and not implemented was growing bigger and needed more time to be sorted out.
Suddenly, an activist stood up and announced he always begins this kind of meetings by singing the national anthem to invoke a patriotic spirit. He started signing and the rest of the activists joined him. Rao said Joshi remained seated for the initial three lines and then got up and left the room. The activists continued singing the national anthem and then waited for Joshi to come back. “We then saw Joshi in the lobby where he loudly told us he was calling the police. We agreed to wait for the police to arrive. It came an hour after Joshi left, and took us to the police station,” said Rao.
Officials at the SIC claimed activists should have maintained the decorum and should not have sang the national anthem since the SIC functions like a court. Rao admitted singing was unnecessary and distracting, but not premeditated. “Once the national anthem started, we felt the gracious thing to do was stand in attention and join in singing,” said Rao, who heads Sahasi Padyatri (brave pedestrian), an organization that promotes rights of pedestrians.
Joshi’s recent show of bureaucratic power has evoked sharp response from the civil society. A public meeting was organized on May 30 to discuss it. Said Arun Bhatia, a former IAS officer and president of the newly formed People’s Guardian Party: “Arrest of activists is absurd and shows misuse of power by the bureaucracy.” Bhatia was supported by Dolphy D’Souza of the Bombay Catholic Sabha, a non-political organization. “There is nothing wrong in what the activists did,” said D’Souza, adding, “Progress depends on unreasonable people, so we need to become a little unreasonable and demand transformation.”
Since November last year, activists in Mumbai have launched a campaign demanding proper implementation of the 2005 Act. On November 26, 2008, when terrorists attacked Mumbai, Joshi was stuck in his office till late in the night because the activists had demanded an order to be passed on an RTI appeal that very day. Activists claimed Joshi had promised to pass an order that day after delaying it repeatedly. This was enough to irk Joshi, who, according to press reports, wrote to the Mumbai Police chief seeking police protection because “many of the people who visit his office are accused in bomb blasts or named in criminal cases.”
In May this year, activists launched yet another campaign to oust Joshi as the chief SIC, alleging he is hearing-impaired. In an open letter to the chief minister, Ashok Chavan, activists demanded removal of Joshi on the basis of “physical infirmity (deafness) and incompetence”. They asked the chief minister to apply Section 17(3)(d) of the 2005 Act that disqualifies officials who are “unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind or body”.
Rao alleged Joshi’s hearing problem has started to affect his work. “He often conducts hearings and meetings with activists without even putting on his hearing aids. He makes appellants endlessly justify themselves,” alleged Rao.
Rao also accused Joshi of killing the spirit of the 2005 Act by not implementing some of its most important sections. As per Section 6(2) of the Act, the applicant need not give a reason why he/she needs information. The section 7(2) says if information is not given within the specified time, it is deemed to have been denied. Sections 19(5) and 20(1) put the onus of justifying refusal of information on the public information officer and not the appellant. These provisions of the Act have been purposely ignored by Joshi, who was selected as the chief SIC three years ago, alleged Rao
(see: Employment exchange, Down To Earth, December 31, 2005). |
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