AHMEDABAD: Central Information Commissioner (CIC) has returned a plea under Right to Information (RTI) Act filed by a city-based activist seeking details of black money seized after demonetization. The office has said it has returned the application as it was in Gujarati and not written in English or Hindi.

City-based RTI activist Bharatsinh Jhala had filed the petition in March this year after the income tax department of Gujarat refused to divulge information regarding cases of black money seized under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS). The I-T department said that it does not maintain any statistics regarding people who have declared money or assets under income declaration scheme (IDS). After this, Jhala moved his application before the CIC.

In its reply to the applicant, the CIC office said that the plea was returned for removal of deficiencies. “The documents submitted with the appeal/ complaint are not in English or Hindi. A translated version, either in Hindi or English of the same, may be submitted,” reads the reply dated May 12 given by deputy registrar of CIC. Talking to TOI, Jhala said, “This is violation of core principles of RTI Act because a citizen is deprived of his right to information, just because he does not know English or Hindi.”

“One cannot return a plea seeking information on valid grounds, just because it was in Gujarati. I have used a recognized regional language of the country. Besides, I have also attached documents of the RTI reply (which denied information) given by I-T department. So there was no such issue of not understanding my plea,” Jhala said. “Even if the CIC officer could not understand my plea, he should have got it translated,” Jhala added. Another city-based RTI activist, Pankti Jog, said that there are no norms in RTI Act through which one can deny information merely on the issue of language. “RTI norms say that the plea can be filed either in English, Hindi or in local language,” Jog said.

