Social and Right to Information (RTI) activist from the State capital Ajay Dubey in an e-memorandum to chief secretary (CS) of the State urged to suo motu disclose the information under Section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005.
Dubey in his memorandum to the CS urged that the information should be disclosed suo motto under Section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005 in compliance to the guidelines issued by Department of Personnel and Training, Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions vide its office memorandum no: 1/6/2011-ir dated April 15, 2013.
He said, “I have come to know from the media reports that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is interested to bring transparency and accountability in the Government offices of the State. He has also adopted zero tolerance policy toward corruption so in that context I would like to remind that I have earlier submitted few points regarding the strengthening of the RTI Act 2005 in MP.”
He said that the GOI has issued the guidelines to implement Section 4 of the RTI Act which is regarding the suo mottu disclosure of the information.
These guidelines were to be accomplished before October 15, but the State Government has done nothing in this issue; so once again he drew Chief Secretary’s attention regarding the implementation of the guidelines.
Notably, Section 4 (1) (b) of the RTI Act lays down the information which should be disclosed by Public Authorities on a suo motto or proactive basis. Section 4 (2) and Section 4 (3) prescribe the method of dissemination of this information.
He said the purpose of suo motto disclosures under Section 4 is to place large amount of information in public domain on a proactive basis to make the functioning of the Public Authorities more transparent and also to reduce the need for filing individual RTI applications.
He said, “I have requested many a times regarding the proactive disclosure to be made by the State Government but you not only failed to respond but also have not taken any single action in this direction. Now I believe that the new guidelines will be followed and implemented in the letter and spirit.”