Information punch at PMO

The Telegraph, 14 April 2006

New Delhi, April 14: The government got a taste of its own medicine today when former and current members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) turned against the Prime Minister’s Office for allegedly violating the Right to Information Act.

Aruna Roy, an NAC member and a leader of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, and her colleague Shekhar Singh filed a complaint to the chief information officer of India, Wajahat Habibullah, against the PMO.

Roy and Jean Dreze, the economist, accused the government of shielding information contained in the three ministers’ report on the Narmada valley. Roy is still a member of the NAC while Dreze resigned recently.

It was the NAC under Sonia Gandhi that had given the push to the government on citizens’ right to information. Roy’s organisation had been campaigning for almost two decades for a strong law providing access to official documents. The government passed the act in 2002 but the organisation alleged that it was a watered-down version of what they had envisaged.

After the United Progressive Alliance came to power, Roy and Dreze were at the forefront of the campaign to amend the act. They suggested a long list of changes, which the NAC endorsed and recommended to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The suggested amendments became the basis for the Right to Information Bill introduced in Parliament in December 2004. On October 13, 2005, the act was adopted across the country.

Using the same act against the PMO, they alleged in the complaint that they had applied to the PMO on April 12 for the report of the three ministers who visited the Narmada valley to survey the rehabilitation work.

“Given the urgency to save the lives of NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan) activists who have already been deprived of their homes and means of livelihood, the asked-for information cannot wait for a 30-45-day appeal process,” the complainants said.

“We are, therefore, making this special appeal to you to consider this as a complaint under section 18 of the act.? As the group of ministers was constituted by the PM and their report was submitted to him, it is inconceivable that the PMO does not have access to it.”

The NAC members and Dreze later visited Jantar Mantar where Narmada activists are protesting against increasing the dam height and accused the government of being a party to “subversion” of democracy.

“What’s so secret about the ministers’ report, are we going to explode a bomb with the information contained in it?” asked Roy.