NEW DELHI: Congress President Sonia Gandhi today attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “blatant U-turn” on the issue of transparency, charging his government with “deliberately” keeping key posts of Chief Information Commissioner, CVC and Lok Pal vacant.
Accusing the BJP dispensation of attempting to “subvert the RTI Act”, she said citizens no longer have right to question the government as top offices like the PMO, Cabinet Secretariat besides the Supreme Court, High Courts and CAG are no longer accountable for violations under the RTI and protected from public scrutiny.
Gandhi had sought to bring an adjournment motion on the issue in the Lok Sabha but was allowed to raise it after the question hour.
The Congress President lamented that the CIC post was lying vacant for over eight months and the posts of three Information Commissioners for over a year, resulting in the backlog of 39,000 cases.
“Information delayed is information denied. This is simply not acceptable. Protecting wrongdoers cannot be part of any government ethos,” she said, recalling Modi’s promises of transparency and good governance.
“In a blatant U-turn, his government has made sure,” she said, “the offices of the PMO, Cabinet Secretariat… are no longer accountable. … It points to a clear attempt to avoid transparency and subvert the RTI,” she said, adding that the landmark law brought by the UPA empowered millions of people.
More than half of the information commission’s offices in the country lack infrastructure which, she said, suggesting that the Centre was trying to systematically subvert the RTI.
She also raised the issues of the Lokpal’s post remaining vacant and the Whistleblower’s Bill not being notified despite getting the President’s assent in May 2014, and took a dig at the government saying it has otherwise shown “extraordinary urgency” in pushing bills.
Government rejected her charge, as Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh said the CVC post was not yet fulfilled as the Supreme Court was overseeing the matter while a search committee was close to shortlisting candidates for the CIC’s post, applications for which were publicly invited by the government in the “interest of transparency”.
Dissatisfied Congress members walked out of the House as Singh insisted that that posts of information commissioners had remained vacant even during the UPA’s term and urged the opposition to hear the facts “keeping political interests aside”.
Giving a detailed response to the issues raised by Gandhi, the Minister of State in the PMO said while the process of appointment of CVC was on after the post fell vacant on Sept 28 last year, there was court litigation.
He said the Supreme Court passed a direction on December 17 asking the government to keep it informed about the ongoing process and the matter was now expected to be heard in July.
There was no delay on the part of the Department of Personnel and Training, he contended.
As far as the Central Information Commission was concerned, he said there have been occasions in the past when a number of Information Commissioners were lacking. He said in 2011, there were only five Information Commissioners.
“At no time in UPA rule, you had 10 commissioners”, Jitendra Singh said, taking a dig at the Congress.
He denied the charge that the PMO took control of the CIC after the end of the term of Rajiv Mathur and said that only financial powers were delegated to Secretary, DoPT for sometime before the Secretary, CIC, was given the responsibility.
As regards the Whistleblowers Bill, he said it was a “tell-tale story” of the 10 years of UPA rule and added that then Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley had given a number of suggestions concerning issues of sovereignty and security and they were accepted by all.
But the bill was “bulldozed” without the amendments in February last year when the UPA rule was coming to an end, he said.
On the Lokpal issue, he said there was no fixed term for the jurist on the committee and therefore government has brought an amendment restricting it to three years.
Singh said the leader of the largest party in the opposition has been taken in the selection committee in the absence of the Leader of Opposition in the present Lok Sabha.
“You should be rather grateful and appreciate it”, he told the opposition.
Besides, now the issue was pending with the Standing Committee and the government cannot do anything until this panel gave its report.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu was critical of the Congress over disruption of the proceedings by its members. He said the Minister, as well as the treasury benches, had heard Gandhi with rapt attention.-PTI
