Date:11/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/11/stories/2009011157950100.htm

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‘PIOs’ posting delay a violation of RTI Act’

Special Correspondent

Palat Mohandas says there is now increased awareness of the Act.

THALASSERY: Chief Information Commissioner Palat Mohandas has said that the delay in appointing public information officers (PIO) in the offices of the Ministers in the State amounted to violation of the Right to Information Act.

He was inaugurating the ‘Right to Information Knowledge Meet’ organised here on Saturday as part of a one-day discussion on the Right to Information Act held under the auspices of the District Court Bar Association.

Mr. Mohandas said though a PIO had been appointed in the Chief Minister’s Office following a directive of the State Information Commission, the offices of other Ministers were yet to have PIOs.

The commission had already directed the Ministries to have PIOs in their offices, he said. The Ministers’ offices were public offices and thus came under the purview of the Act. “Teething troubles cannot be an excuse now as three years have passed since the Right to Information Act was enacted,” Mr. Mohandas said. He said there was now increased awareness of the Act and its scope.

Public officials responsible for providing information available with them were now increasingly extending their cooperation in supplying information to those who demanded it, mainly because of the penalty clause in the Act, he said. The functioning of many public agencies that had been hitherto opaque now became transparent thanks to the Act, he added.

Disclosing that the northern districts showed keener interest in invoking the Act, Mr. Mohandas said that 1,86,000 requests/queries had been received by the PIOs in the State.

The commission received 2000-odd complaints and as many appeals during the year. The number of requests/queries this year was expected to reach 2.5 lakh, he said.

Mr. Mohandas said that the commission was of the view that any agency that received even Re.1 from the public fund was a public authority under the purview of the Act.

He said the functioning of the Public Service Commission had undergone vast changes because of the interventions under the Act.