Friends, Yesterday I appeared before the Information Commission of Uttar Pradesh in two matters where information had been sought from the Personnel department, Government of Uttar Pradesh. In both the cases the department had not provided any information. In one they had made excuse of a decision pronounced by the Central Information commission in the Pradeep Dutt vs Income Tax Directorate case, New Delhi and an Office memorandum of the Ministry of Personnel, Govt of India dated 12/06/2008 in both of which supposedly it has been said that only those information can be given which already exist and the department is not required to create new information. In the second case, the department had refused information citing a decision by the State Information Commission in Tarun Prakash Sharma vs Principal Secretary, Labour Uttar Pradesh dated 31/07/2008 which after lots of deliberations concluded that only natural entity can ask for information. Any organization, registered or not, cannot seek information. In the first case, when we pursued the matter in the Commission, the Department buckled and provided information on six of the eight points asked for. On the two other points, it reverted back to the same Office Memorandum mentioned above. In the second case so far no information has been obtained despite many appearances before the concerned Information Commissioner. I present the cases firstly to bring these legal issues before you so that you appreciate the situation of RTI in Uttar Pradesh and secondly so that you also provide us legal assistance and legal view on the above-mentioned facts. When I appeared in the first case where information has been given on 6 points, the first thing the Information Commissioner said was- “So you have already got the information.” When I refused and said that two issues are still left, he started asking me if I knew about this Office Memo of the govt of India. I said that I did not need to know about the OM as the contents were already written in the letter itself, yet the Information Commissioner seemed to get stuck with the OM. He started ordering that the OM be supplied to me. When I said that I did not want that OM but the information I had sought he then gave a further date for hearing. In the second case, after sending the initial application to the PIO, I had pasted the receivings and IPO etc on the same page, so that the contents got somewhat hidden. While the issue of natural person vs organization (as I had asked this information on the letter pad of our Hindi daily newspaper Nutan Satta Pravah) was over once I said that I had asked this information in the capacity of a natural person and not as Editor, the Information Commissioner said that since the original application was not clear, how the information could be given. I explained him that though this application is not clear but the respondents must be having the original letter sent by me, on which they gave their reply. But the Information Commissioner was not willing to listen to me. Then I insisted on his calling the respondent with the file and only then he dropped this issue. We have been having the same set of interaction for the last three hearings. A next date has been fixed here again. I am now waiting for the next date to come. Dr Nutan Thakur, Convener, National RTI Forum, Lucknow # 94155-34525
