Activists meet Sonia to argue against exemption to CBI from RTI

NEW DELHI: Concerned over the quiet exclusion of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the ambit of the Right to Information Act, National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy raised the matter in the council meeting on Wednesday and met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi separately to press the issue.
Speaking after the meeting, Roy said, "This is an extremely serious issue and we met the UPA chairperson to explain out stand.We got a sympathetic hearing." Roy had expressed reservations on the government's move to include the investigating agency in the second schedule of RTI Act in the NAC meeting that was chaired by Sonia.
She later met the UPA chairperson with other members of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information. NCPRI's Nikhil Dey said, "We strongly criticize this move by the government and intend to protest on the issue through a petition to garner support from eminent citizens and by other means.''
The Union Cabinet had recently cleared three organizations to be added to the second schedule of RTI Act. These include National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and CBI. According to Section 24 of the Act, "intelligence and security organisations'' specified in the second schedule are exempt under RTI except for information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violations.
Activists have been up in arms against the government's decision attacking it for making the move without any discussion. Criticising the decision to exclude CBI from the ambit of RTI, activist Arvind Kejriwal accused the government of not bringing it under an independent Lokpal to "arm twist" political leaders opposed to it.
"The government is interested in keeping CBI under its control so that it can arm twist opponents and scuttle any investigation against their own people," Kejriwal said.
He also noted that CBI did not deal with security and intelligence and could not be clubbed with agencies like Intelligence Bureau or RAW.
Activist S C Agrawal said it was was clear that government was bent upon killing RTI Act. "Such regular addition to second schedule (of exempting organizations) has raised the number from the original 18 to 25," he said.