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By Navaz Kotwal A citizen recounts her long struggle to get information out of jail authorities
The Indian government and administrative functionaries are plagued by corruption at every level. The Right to Information (RTI) Act, which was passed by both houses of Parliament following a long struggle by people’s movements, civil society groups and others to secure transparency, accountability and participation in governance, aims to combat this menace. Citizens have the right to know what their government is up to. The RTI Act gives them access to most kinds of information, except for one narrow band. Even here, the Act makes it clear that the person withholding the information has to show that he is doing so in the greater public interest. The Act broadly creates two categories of information: information that the government must make public, open and accessible on its own (proactive disclosure), and information that can be provided on request. The first category, or Section 4 information as it is commonly known, includes laws, subsidiary legislation and rules regulations that must be made available and accessible to everyone as a matter of course. The information must also be regularly updated. Purpose of filing an application under the RTI Act Comfortable in the knowledge that there is an Act available to ensure and realise my fundamental right, I went about using it. This is the story of my hunt for information. A few months ago I was faced with a situation wherein I required some information that would help me in my work. I had assisted in a prosecution case where the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment. In less than a month of their conviction, however, they were back in the village, moving about freely. I made a few enquiries and discovered that they were out on parole. I decided to look into the rules for granting parole. I knew that Gujarat does not have a separate law for parole but follows the Bombay Rules. These rules are not available in print in the market. I approached the jail authorities. The jailor insisted that the document I was seeking was “private and confidential”. Clearly, there was no other way but to obtain the information under the RTI Act. I filed my first application. Within a few days I received a letter from the jail authorities mentioning that I had not stated the reason for which I required the information. There is no section in the Act or the rules that requires an applicant to state his reason for seeking the information. Next, I was told that I had not deposited the required fee with my application. The letter ended with an invitation to a meeting at a stipulated date and time. I skipped the suggested day for my meeting with the jail authorities; I decided to go on another day. The concerned authority told me to file an application suggesting another date and time for the meeting. I wrote a letter to the jail superintendent asking him to give me another date and time for the meeting. They called me 10 days later. Thirty-four days had passed since my original application. I had been made to pay an application fee, which I should not have had to. And I had had to suffer the additional nuisance of corresponding with the concerned authorities and arranging a meeting with them. Meeting with the jail authorities My meeting was scheduled for 4:45 pm. The jailor was not in his seat. He was busy with republic day celebrations and said he would join me in a while. He walked in half-an-hour later. I introduced myself. He asked me sternly: “What is the reason for wanting the information?” Was he aware of the provisions of the Act and was only pretending? Or was he trying to intimidate me? I decided to educate him. “The law does not require me to give reasons for asking for the information,” I said. Barelyhad the words left my mouth when I saw the jailor stiffen in his chair. He angrily retorted that he would provide the information only when I gave him a reason for wanting it. His hands were tied, he said. He was bound by departmental procedure and the rules of the home department. Probably trying to absolve himself of the responsibility, he advised me to meet the deputy superintendent of the jail. The jailor walked me to the deputy’s room, introduced me and gave a brief account of why I was there. Once I confirmed with the deputy that I was a lawyer, he asked me my purpose for wanting the information. I explained once again. He continued to argue. I handed him a copy of the Act. I insisted that his ignorance could not deny me the information. He replied that if the government had introduced the Act, I should get the information from the government. There was no way he was going to endanger his job by giving me the information. It was unbelievable! I had been summoned here for making an application under an Act that had been introduced by the government for its citizens. The hurdles, the interrogation and the suspicion an applicant faces is enough to make him give up in despair! Then the deputy smiled and said that I should not be wasting my time making all these applications. The information was readily available in the market. I asked him where. He opened his drawer, took out copies of some printed material, and said they were the Prison Rules, 1959. I went through the photocopies and asked him the name of the book in which the rules were published. He did not answer. When I asked him for more information from the manual, he refused. Suddenly, I was confronted with the most humiliating question. “Are you going to use this information for terrorism or against the security of the state or country? Who are you? And can you confirm that you are not a terrorist or an antisocial element?”I replied angrily that his statements were unacceptable and that he had no business making such allegations. I demanded an apology. He apologised, but in the same breath he told me quite clearly that he could not give me the information I sought. He advised me to meet the senior jailor or the jail superintendent. But that would have to be on another day. I had wasted a whole evening trying to get a piece of legislation out of people who should have had it readily available as part of their job! I had barely got to the main gate when a man came running up to me. The jailor wanted to see me. When I reached his office he asked me why I had left without taking the information. I was annoyed. No one had bothered to offer me the information, and now the jailor was asking me why I was leaving without it! The jailor summoned his clerk and asked for the jail manual. The pages were falling apart and, clearly, it had not been opened by a few generations of jailors! He ordered his clerk in and asked for the required sections to be photocopied. I paid for the photocopies and asked the jailor to provide me with certified copies of the information. Again, in defiance of explicit provisions under the Act, I was refused. “The information may be used wrongfully.” How, I wondered, could legal regulations be used wrongfully… By now I was too tired to argue the point. Knowing the way government functions, I understood, without justifying the behaviour, that at some level it was not their fault. They were faced with a new Act under which they were bound to provide information. But they had very little knowledge about it, and a century-long tradition of secrecy. No one in government had told them anything different, and now here I was demanding my right to question their authority. Resistance was a forgone conclusion. As I was leaving, the jailor asked for a copy of the Act and the rules. Government apathy shows itself in strange ways. Here was the PIO asking an ordinary citizen for a copy of the RTI Act! I handed him two copies and left. The main purpose of the new law is to ensure that governance changes. The Act encourages public scrutiny. It is designed to curb abuse of power and reduce the extent to which subjective discretion in the hands of accountable government servants has gone. It clarifies that anyone can get any information. And that if the information is not provided, a penalty could be imposed. But the Act has only recently been born, and already there are attempts to strangle it. Most people in India remain poor and powerless; millions are illiterate; many live in remote areas. I’m an educated urban lawyer. With this in my favour I was obliged to force information out of the reluctant hands of the authorities, who were themselves ignorant of the law. It is going to be a long while before things change. But I am glad I tried. It is going to be a long journey, but I am glad it has begun… (Navaz Kotwal is Programme Coordinator, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative [CHRI], New Delhi) InfoChange News & Features, October 2008 |
