The Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE), an apex body of public sector enterprises (PSEs) today organised a workshop on the Right to Information (RTI) Act here today.
The State Chief Information Commissioner (SIC), H Nongpluh, expressed concern on how the RTI Act is silent about people who harass officers. He said that recently, when they had a conference, all were one in the idea that they should not allow this act to be misused.
Nongpluh is a retired IPS officer and joined the information commission in November 2021. Based on his experience, Nongpluh said that the RTI law is such a small Act but such programmes have to be organised every now and then.
“The reason behind this is that there are two conflicting interests. One is the interest of the common man for information. Another one is the interest of the department, interest of the Public Information Officers (PIOs), to not give information,” he said while interacting with participants.
Urging the PIOs to change their mindset, Nongpluh said that the PIO can lessen this conflicting interest between the information seeker and the information giver. He said that in his experience he has seen that the mindset of the PIO is to find exemption in order not to provide information to the RTI applicant.
“I would always tell them that the mindset should first be ‘what can I give, not what I cannot give’. So when you approach in that direction, then everything will get settled,” Nongpluh said.
The officer also suggested that the First Appellate Authority should distance itself from the RTI application. He suggested that the first appellate can give advice but not get involved too much because they are the next level of appeal.
“Because generally what we have seen is that very few first appellate authority will overrule the PIO. Because they have already discussed and have already talked. It’s a joint decision actually. But this is not the idea behind the RTI Act,” he stated.
The Chief Information Commissioner, Heeralal Samariya, is expected to interact with the participants during the last day of the event on Saturday. The workshop or the national meet on RTI Act is a two-day event that is being attended by 80 participants from different places.
