Start of the week was the report that the President’s Secretariat was furious that copy of papers which were held back by that office as ‘not-falling’ under the ambit of Right To Information Act, was subsequently handed over by the Ministry of Law to another applicant. Not that the papers were of much importance except as some footnote for a historian.
Both the persons involved in the ‘papers’ have held the office as the Chief Election Commissioner of India and have demitted office. And although the predecessor expressed some concerns against the successor, the worthy did perform his duties adequately – some would say even admirably. But the point is that the President’s Secretariat was incensed and even called for ‘amendments’ to the RTI Act itself.
Barely a week before that news broke, media went to town about the Governor of Karnataka’s recommendation for imposing President’s rule in view of the chaotic political situation in the state. Whether justified or not, the recommendation was given by the Governor directly to the President and such letters, reports are by nature ‘confidential’ and certainly not to be available in public domain, in real time. Just have a look at the amount of details available about that letter. And after almost 2 weeks, we are yet to hear a peep about this ‘leak’.
I don’t know what to think. One hand, the mightiest of the land are incensed about something which happened almost an year ago, even though concerns expressed in the original letter proved to be drivel. OTOH, the same mighty people are not much bothered about dissemination of ‘confidential’ information in real time, while there was a political uncertainty in a large state like Karnataka.
Sheesh, have we got our priorities wrong?
My wicked half whispers, ‘the funny thing is, the news of the ‘feel-offended’ letter itself was the result of another RTI enquiry’ How about that!
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