Corporator threatens RTI activist in Pune

In yet another incidence of an RTI activist being at the receiving end for seeking information under the information Act, activist Vijay Kumbhar was threatened by a corporator in Pune on Tuesday. Kumbhar was threatened while inspecting files related to a construction at the Pune Municipal Corporation office in the presence of civic officials. The corporator in the case was Kailash Gaikwad. Kumbhar had gone to inspect the files to see if a construction coming up in his neighbourhood had the requisite permission and was legal or not.

This case gains significance because earlier Pune had seen activist Satish Shetty being threatened and killed. Shetty's case remains unsolved till date. A former journalist and a guest columnist in regional language newspapers, Kumbhar also has several PILs to his credit. He won two cases — one against the state government's decision to give a plot of land reserved for a school to the son-in-law of former chief minister Manohar Joshi and the other, also against the state, to have a land policy so that all land lease is done through tendering.

The 52-year-old activist had brought to light the decision of the erstwhile government to keep the anti-corruption bureau outside the RTI ambit. This decision was later reversed. "On March 31, I had gone to inspect the files of a construction. It has been halted for some time. It seems that the work is being done on encroached land. I had filed a complaint about it. It so happened that the builder, architect and the corporator too had come at that time," said Kumbhar.

"What surprised me is that if they can do something like this to me, then what will they be doing to common citizens," said Kumbhar, a proprietor of a consultancy firm that provides services on civic issues. "He had around 10-12 people with him, which he now says were not his. He asked me threateningly what have I to do with the information. His language was not appropriate and I have complained to the police commissioner about it," he added.

The civil society reacted sharply to the incident. Former top cop Julio Ribeiro, former central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and co-convenor of National Campaign for People's Right to Information Bhaskar Prabhu have written letters to different authorities including the governor, chief minister, state chief information commissioner and director general of police among others. "It should be made very clear to the corporator that if anything happens to Kumbhar, he will be held responsible for that," wrote Ribeiro in his letter adding that threats have usually lead to attacks and killing of activists.

"If it has happened in the corporation premises, then officers present should have called the police. It is their duty. Corporators are not above the Act enacted by Parliament. The file inspection was being done under section 4 of the RTI Act which mandates suo motu declarations by the public authority," said Bhaskar Prabhu who has written a letter to the CM.

State chief information commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad has written to the Pune information commissioner stating that directions be given to the municipal corporation to disclose all information suo motu. When dna contacted chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, he said, "I have not come across their letter. Will find out, and if needed, action will be taken. We will protect all genuine whistle blowers."