FOR TRANSPARENCY: (From left) Chief Information Commissioner K.K. Misra and Samuel Paul of the Public Affairs Centre at the open-house discussion on `Right to Information Act: Appeals and Complaints Process,' in Bangalore on Saturday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: While Chief Information Commissioner K.K. Misra strongly favours the Right to Information Act and is all for giving more teeth to it, Chief Secretary P.B. Mahishi is concerned over its misuse.

The divergent views — both by bureaucrats — were aired at an open house session, `Right to Information Act: Appeals and Complaints Process,' jointly organised by the Karnataka Right to Information Activists' Forum, Public Affairs Centre and Citizens' Voluntary Initiative for the City of Bangalore, here. Regretting officials' apathy even in furnishing "harmless" information, Mr. Mahishi in the same breath said the Act's misuse for personal vendetta should be prevented. "Recently a person aggrieved by my order filed an application seeking information as to whether the Chief Secretary takes cognisance of corrupt officers, whether he visits district offices... " The Government was bothered about such infructuous applications, he said while seeking power to fine those who sought adversarial information.

Though in favour of furnishing harmless information, Mr. Mahishi felt the need for further research on issues that could be kept in public domain. Coming to the rescue of his subordinates, the Chief Secretary defended the ignorance of some of the officials about the Act. "They cannot be faulted with the type of workload they have," he said. Earlier, Mr. Misra said despite several lacunae in the Act, the Information Commission was acting beyond its powers to make information available to people. "We (act on the behalf of the applicant) and see whether the official concerned has given the appropriate information."

The official is given sufficient opportunity to explain failure to give information or about the document's non-availability. The commission's non-confrontationist attitude had helped provide more information to the public to a large extent, he said.

Arguing that the Act should have more teeth, Mr. Misra urged the Government to amend it so as to empower the commission to initiate contempt of court proceedings. This would have salutary effect and solve the problem of non-compliance of commission's order. "We do not know how to deal with non-compliance at present," he added.

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