‘Gill becoming unaccountable’
Recalling sports minister M.S. Gill’s statement in Parliament that MPs can come through RTI route if they want information, new Chief Information Commissioner A.N. Tiwari said that such a suggestion made by Mr Gill is “absolutely becoming unaccountable”.
He also said that mere dependence on the RTI Act will not promote transparency.
“Because there is RTI, some people are saying unless you come through RTI, we will not give you information. Latest example is M.S. Gill talking in Parliament that come through RTI route. How can you say that? It is absolutely becoming unaccountable. You should say that my system is such that you don’t need RTI to get information,” he told an agency.
Mr Tiwari, 64, who succeeded Wajahat Habibullah, said he would start a dialogue with all the “government instrumentalities” to identify documents and records which cannot be made public, so that all remaining records could be made available to public without any use of the transparency law.
However, he said while opening documents for public scrutiny, “one size fits all” will not work.
“My proposal to government is that they create a negative list of documents which cannot be disclosed. The rest of the files should be open which can be accessed by citizens without the use of RTI. RTI works best when it is used the least,” Mr Tiwari said.
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