Government Tried Seeking RTI Cover But Has Finally Relented
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: After delaying tactics, the government has relented and agreed to make public audio recordings of proceedings of the joint drafting committee to frame the Lokpal bill.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had earlier sought law ministry's opinion before making the deliberations public. The government had also refused to part with the recordings, telling Team Anna members to ask for them under the Right to Information Act. The disclosure comes after RTI activist S C Agrawal sought details of the committee's deliberations.
The joint drafting committee, comprising five members of Team Anna and an equal number of Cabinet ministers, was formed to finalize the draft of the Lokpal bill earlier this year. The committee, constituted on April 10, included finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, home minister P Chidambaram, then law minister Veerappa Moily, telecom and HRD minister Kapil Sibal and minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
Civil society members included Anna Hazare, Justice Santosh Hedge, Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal. Responding to Agrawal, DoPT said audio recordings of the meetings of the joint drafting committee have now become available. "There are nine CDs and you may deposit copying fee of Rs 450 so that copies of the CDs can be supplied to you,'' Amarjit Singh, undersecretary of DoPT, said in the response.
While welcoming the decision, Agrawal said he would deposit the money under protest on Monday because information to an RTI query had to be provided free of cost if the response did not come within 30 days. He had filed the RTI application in June. Earlier, responding to an RTI query, DoPT had said it required the nod of law ministry to make public audio recordings of the closed-door meetings between the government and Team Anna.
"The matter relating to RTI queries on audio recordings of JDC has been referred to department of legal affairs in ministry of law and justice for clarification," an RTI response fromt he DoPT had said.
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