The law should be equal to for all, say RTI activists

Right to Information RTI activists in the city and other parts of the country have come together to protest against the governmentrsquos decision to amend the RTI Act A bill to amend the RTI Act in order to keep political parties out of the ambit of the transparency law was up for discussion in Lok Sabha last week Engineer Satyendra Dubey and RTI activist Satish Kumar lost their lives while trying to expose corruption related to highways and land deals PicShadab Khan On August 2 Union cabinet had cleared a proposal to amend the RTI Act and give immunity to politicians This action by the government has strengthened RTI activists across the country encouraging them to fight against the passing of the Amendment Bill and simultaneously launching a campaign in the city to send open letters to various business houses and individual legislators asking them to support transparency in the system RTI Amendment Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha excluding political parties from the ambit of the law Mumbaibased RTI activist Mohammad Afzal 50 demanded that instead of directly amending the Act and putting it for a vote the Amendment Bill should be a part of public discussion and later should be put forth to the standing committee or the select committee Only then will it facilitate the public He says ldquoWhat the government is doing is not democratic The law should be equal for allrdquo Demanding transparency Protesting against the Amendment Bill demanding transparency in the system and monitoring transactions between political parties and business houses are the demands of RTI activists in the city They have formed a network with fellow activists across the nation who will help facilitate whistleblowers Activist Krishnaraj Rao who initiated this campaign says ldquoIf someone wants information regarding the money transactions between a political party and a business house there are many ways of getting that information Activist Krishnaraj Rao centre initiated the campaign to aid and support whistleblowers across the country PicNimesh Dave One of the ways is through RTI It is the most honourable way of asking who has given them political parties donations how much donation have they received etc But if the Amendment Act is passed a common man will never know where a political party gets its funding from If this is the case then each organization whether business houses or political parties will have some disgruntled people They may be disgruntled for personal reasons or for ethical reasons Mohammad Afzal feels that the whistleblowers are easily blamed PicNimesh Dave For example lsquoArsquo company gives donations to a political party and receives favours in return So if there is a person who is upset he is going to strike a blow at the organization and we are willing to facilitate him Now if the RTI Act is amended there is a possibility that the number of discontented people may rise We have built a network so that we can support them and broadcast the information they have to share All this is done while protecting their identityrdquo Businessman Manish Gala PicDatta Kumbhar Coming together Mumbaibased businessman Manish Gala 42 says that those who have a desire to bring about a change in society will find a way to come together He says ldquoPeople who have taken part in this campaign are doctors lawyers professionals and activists Gathering likeminded people is not hard These activists are acquainted with people in the corporate offices government officers and public figures As each one of us has worked for so long we carry credibility ldquoRight now we are functioning individually and we can contact each other for help and coordination We did not think of forming an organization as every organization has its limits In the future we may create something which is more structured But for now we have opted for a decentralized group Our aim is to bring about transparency in the system and know the truthrdquo He continues ldquoBy amending the RTI Act the government is killing the Act There are provisions under section 8 and 9 of the Act providing protection of the privacy of an individual trade secrets or national security If political parties want more exclusions then that should be under the law But here they are changing the law which doesnrsquot suit them If they are not transparent then whistleblowers will definitely expose corruptionrdquo Sharing information Bimal Kumar Khemani 69 an Aligarhbased fulltime activist and founder of Transparent Reliable Accountable Peoplersquos movement TRAP says ldquoHam to desh ki doosri azadi ki jang ladh rahe hain We are fighting our countryrsquos second freedom struggle No policy exists for the protection of whistleblowers Instead of protecting the citizens police are there to teach a lesson to the general public who do not work according to netas politicians and bureaucratsrdquo While discussing the functioning of the campaign Khemani says ldquoEach one of us who has taken part in this campaign have our own channels of information and we will start investigating information as we receive it It may take time in some of the cases but once we get all the information we will write to the government to take the appropriate action This will be followed by a RTI application and we will ask for a daytoday progress report As for broadcasting the information it will mainly be through social media Each member has their own blogs and websites to broadcast it I will be using my organization TRAP which regularly files RTI applications and exposes the corruptrdquo Cross checking To ensure credibility Gala says ldquoVerification of the received information is very crucial also we will make sure that there should not be any missing links Facts will be verified and documents will be cross checked I agree that there is a chance that someone may take us for a ride but sometimes you just have to trust somebody We will take extra care before going public As for broadcasting the information we are supported by the media print TV networks and social media and they are all ready to give us extensive platformrdquo Soft target Activist Mohammad Afzal says that in Maharashtra and other parts of the country whistleblowers are regularly targeted Pointing to the case of leading RTI activist Satish Kumar in Pune Afzal says ldquoWhen the police receive a complaint they should act upon it immediately They should contact the concerned whistleblower and provide the required protection But in reality this never happensrdquo Kumar had exposed many land scams in the TalegaonLonavala regions and corrupt land deals along the MumbaiPune Expressway He was killed by unidentified men while on a morning walk Afzal says ldquoWith the rising corruption in our country the protection of the whistleblowers is a must But today whistleblowers are thought of as traitors The truth is that they are martyrs One of the whistleblower I knew tried to expose the tampering going on with election machines but today he is behind bars Just passing the whistleblower protection bill is not the answer Public awareness has to be created and if there is a mass revolt only then will our government take notice of usrdquo Krishnaraj Rao further adds ldquoWhen Bhopal gas leak occurred there may have been workers supervisors or engineers who may have known that the tank carrying methyl isocyanate MIC was in a bad condition If that was the case someone may have raised the question lsquoSir if this valve fails then whatrsquo It is a possibility that he may have been silenced But at the same time the Bhopal tragedy would have been avoided Similarly in the Satyendra Dubey case the chap unfortunately wrote only to the Prime Minister about the corruption He thought that by writing to the highest authority in our country he would be protected He wrote to Atal Bihari Vajpayee who naively passed on the letter to the Highway Authority the very people Dubey had accused Later the man died If Dubey had gone public to media or RTI activists then there would have been a PublicInterest Litigation PIL and there would have been an outrage which in turn would have protected him I always advise whistleblowers to always come out I advise them to avoid secrecy as openness will protect themrdquo Creating awareness Goabased advocate and RTI activist Aires Rodrigues 53 has been associated with various social and public movements since the 1979 student agitation in Goa to demand 50 per cent bus concession for students A member of the whistleblower protection campaign he says ldquoThrough this campaign we want to create awareness regarding The RTI amendment and the concept of donations in the political system because of which a whistleblower may feel the need to expose certain information With the growing outrage towards corruption today unauthorized and unaccounted donations are a matter of concern and needs to be nipped in the bud If lsquoArsquo political party has received donations for party development why are they afraid to disclose it Why are they giving us an opportunity to doubt them Every paisa has to be accounted for It is never easy to fight a government whether corrupt or not and our government is very rigid Citizens should have the courage to expose and highlight acts of corruption and nepotism It is high time their voices are heard and they are protectedrdquo For more information on the campaign contact Krishnaraj Rao 9821588114 or log onto citizensjusticeforumblogspotin Whistleblowersrsquo Protection Bill The Government of India has been considering adopting a whistleblower protection law for several years In 2003 the Law Commission of India recommended the adoption of the Public Interest Disclosure Protection of Informers Act 2002 In August 2010 the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons Making the Disclosures Bill 2010 was introduced into Lok Sabha The Bill was approved by the cabinet in June 2011 The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons Making the Disclosures Bill 2010 was renamed as The Whistleblowersrsquo Protection Bill 2011 by the Standing Committee The Whistleblowersrsquo Protection Bill 2011 was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 28 2011 The Bill is however currently pending in Rajya Sabha for discussion and further passage The Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on March 29 2012 by V Narayanasamy Minister of State for Personnel Affairs Who is a whistleblower A whistleblower is a person who exposes misconduct alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organization The alleged misconduct may be classified in many ways for example a violation of a law rule regulation andor a direct threat to public interest such as fraud health and safety violations and corruption Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally for example to other people within the accused organization or externally to regulators law enforcement agencies to the media or to groups concerned with the issuesThe term whistleblower comes from the whistle a game referee uses to indicate an illegal or foul play US civic activist Ralph Nader coined the phrase in the early 1970s to avoid the negative connotations found in other words such as ldquoinformersrdquo and ldquosnitchesrdquo Satyendra Dubey Case Satyendra Dubey was shot dead when he tried to expose corruption in a national highway construction project Satyendra Dubey 30 was a project director at the National Highways Authority of India NHAI He was murdered in Bihar after fighting corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral GQ highway construction project The GQ project had strict controls to ensure that the construction would be carried on by experienced firms However Dubey discovered that the contracted firm Larsen and Toubro had been subcontracting the work to smaller lowtechnology groups controlled by the local mafia In spite of contacting his boss there was no action Since Dubey had been facing several threats he wrote directly to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee detailing the financial and contractual irregularities in the project While the letter was not signed he attached a separate biodata so that the matter would be taken more seriously Despite a direct request that his identity be kept secret and despite the letterrsquos sensitive content accusing some of Dubeyrsquos superiors the letter along with biodata was forwarded immediately to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways On November 27 2003 Dubey was found dead by the side of the road in the suburb of AP Colony Varanasi He had been shot More than six years later on March 22 2010 three accused Mantu Kumar Udai Kumar and Pinku Ravidas were convicted for the murder of Dubeyu00a0