The union government has again proved that they would like to maintain a secrecy in whatever they do. They are not even willing to reveal the details to the court. When asked about the pricing details of Rafael deal they hid it giving security reasons. Now when an RTI was filed by bureaucrat Sanjiv Chaturvedi against alleged corruption charges against the Union Ministers, the Prime Ministerâs Office has denied to share the details saying that providing such information may be subjective. Replying to an RTI query, it said the PMO receives complaints against various Union ministers and high-level functionaries from time to time but didnât want to reveal it as most of the complaints were anonymous ones.
These type of lame excuses to protect the corrupted ministers is not a good practice especially when the Modi government says that they are after checking corruption at all levels. Union minister of state for Coal and Mines is already facing corruption charges leveled against him by a senior CBI officer. If the government really wants to check corruption they should reveal the truth to the people. Why to hide if there is transparency ?
In its reply to the RTI plea, the PMO said after taking the needful action, the records are not kept in one place and thrown here and there in the office. This statement is a very silly one. If they are treating the corruption charges with priority surely they will keep the file for further examination.
The provisions of Section 7 (9) of the Right to Information Act says that “an information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question”. If the government starts revealing the details of the corruption charges against its own ministers they very well know that they will have to pay a price in the coming 2019 elections.
