The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders abstained from the hearing before the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of the Madhya Pradesh State Information Commission (MPSIC), KG khan, in a complaint of not implementing the Right To Information (RTI) Act in the State.
RTI activist and Transparency International member from the State capital, Ajay Dube in a statement informed that MP BJP president Narendra Singh Tomar and organizational general secretary Arvind Menon were summoned by the CIC on a complaint filed by his organization about the party not implementing RTI Act in the State.
Dube said, "It is a matter of grave concern and pity that the accountable office-bearers of a national party remained absent from such an important hearing. Moreover, they showed their disrespect to the MPSIC constituted under democratic provisions they did not even bother to inform the Commission about not appearing before it."
Dube said that the BJP State president and organizational general secretary also skipped the last hearing on April 4. He said that taking cognizance of my complaint dated March 1, this year the MPSIC issued notices to Tomar and Menon and summoned them before it on April 4 to put forth their view. Neither Tomar nor Menon appeared before the Commission on that day, both these responsible office-bearers did not bother to inform the Commission about their inability to appear before it that is an insult to this democratic institution. The commission fixed the next hearing for May 26.
He said that the Central Information Commission (CIC) had issued orders on June 3, 2013 to all the political parties to implement the RTI in that is applicable till date. The BJP should immediately implement the RTI Act and should fearlessly appear before the Commission. The next hearing in the case has been fixed for August 4, 2014.