RTI used to blackmail govt officials

A rising number of cases of blackmail of government officers by using the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, are being reported in RTI circles. Some of these cases came out in the open during the hearing of second appeals by the state information commissioner (SIC) Pune, Vijay Kuvelekar, recently.

After a particularly gruelling hearing, a gram sevak from Satara broke down before the SIC and revealed that in her village a group had repeatedly used the RTI to blackmail government officials.

According to her, members of this group file an RTI application with the village panchayat samiti. The information asked is normally voluminous and, after the application, the group demands money from the official to stop from going for first and second appeal.

If the officer fails to succumb to the blackmail or refuses to comply, the same information is asked by other people at the same time to act as a pressure tactic. This results in the clogging of the appeal systems, with some people filing more than seven or eight appeals for the same case.

Prahlad Kachre, head of the centre for public policy at Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (Yashada), said he was aware of this trend over the past few years. “The problem is acute in Sangli and Solapur districts in Pune division,” he said.

Officers have been complaining about blatant blackmail by certain RTI users. Usually departments dealing with procurement and distribution of grants — such as agriculture and public distribution systems — are susceptible to blackmail. “I might almost say that this is socialisation of corruption,” he said.

Veteran activist Vijay Kumbhar has noticed this disturbing trend in the past few months. He suggested suo motu declaration of information to prevent blackmail by unscrupulous RTI users.

“Section 4 of RTI talks about suo motu declaration of 17 types of information held in the office. If this is done and put in the public domain, the number of applications received under RTI will go down drastically,” he said.

Suo motu declaration will also save officers from blackmailers, Kumbhar said.

Kachre’s advice to the officers facing blackmail is to file criminal complaints. “But in many cases, the officers themselves have certain things to hide and thus refrain from lodging a complaint,” he noted.

In order to deal with the nuisance of multiple RTI applications for the same information, RTI drafting committee member, Nikhil Dey, suggested creating a pool of applications received and answers to them. This would put in public domain the people who are habitual RTI applicants, he said.

“A simple website can be hosted for all the government offices in the state. Once the applications are in the public domain, it would automatically act as a deterrent for people with ulterior motives to apply. However, this suggestion has found very few takers,” he admitted.