Protesters launch mass RTI campaign, raise questions on controversial issues

Right to Information activists attempting to deliver a petition against the RTI Amendments Bill to the President via his Secretariat were detained outside Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.

Later, they launched a new campaign to bombard the government with a mass RTI campaign raising queries on prickly issues of public interest, from the Unnao rape case and the Rafale defence deal to alleged discrepancies in tax revenue data and the impact of Aadhaar.

No permission

The city police said a total of 59 persons were detained, including 45 women and 14 men. “The group did not have any permission. They were detained at Mandir Marg police station for an hour and then were released,” a police spokesperson said.

According to the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), the police detained 66 activists gathered outside Gate No. 38 of Rashtrapati Bhavan which has a facility for accepting memorandums from the public. Three of them were later allowed to submit their plea, urging President Ram Nath Kovind not to sign the Bill passed by Parliament last week.

‘Attack on rights’

“This is an absolute attack on our democratic rights to free speech and expression,” said Anjali Bhardwaj, NCPRI co-convener who was among those detained by the police. “There were no slogans, no banners, no posters. It was simply a group of citizens who brought their own signed petitions to the President of the country. If we cannot even do that, it is a joke to call this a democracy,” she said.

The petition to the President had almost two lakh signatures, including 1.27 lakh people who joined an online campaign on the Change.org platform.

“The Centre has not allowed this legislation to be publicly discussed anywhere. It was not sent to the parliamentary standing committee or any select committee, there was no information about the Bill on the website, no pre-legislative consultation, or public stakeholders consultation,” noted NCPRI founder Nikhil Dey.

“We believe this is because they have information to hide...Maybe they can steamroll Parliament, but they cannot steamroll the people.”

In conjunction with social movements across the country, NCPRI activists have drafted and filed 100 RTI queries on high-profile issues of public interest as part of a new campaign called “Use RTI to Save RTI”.

On top of the list is an RTI request about the Unnao rape case, asking for details and copies of the FIRs and chargesheets against the accused BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, and also seeking details of the police protection given to the victim.