Saturday, February 25, 2012

RTI QUERIES DON'T AFFECT GOVT. WORK

The time spent by government officials replying to RTI is so little that it cannot be a pretext for them to shirk that task

In August 2011, the Supreme Court made an observation which had some unintended consequences on the Right to Information (RTI) process. The judgement by Justice R.V. Raveendran is turning out to be a seemingly legitimate excuse for government officials to restrict information.



Aditya Bandopadhyay went to court when the Central Board of Secondary Education declined to provide his examination answer sheets under the RTI Act. While the court allowed access to answer sheets, it also observed that the cherished right to information should not affect administrative efficiency.