TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: An 11-member delegation called on Goa Governor B V Wanchoo Tuesday and besought him to stop Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar from trying to dilute the Right to Information Act.
The delegation has alleged that all information is ‘masked’ and kept under wraps, and Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was trying to kill the RTI Act in Goa by attempting to exempt government departments from coming under the purview of the Act, their memorandum to the Governor reads.
Drawing the attention of the Governor to the chief minister’s move to exempt departments from the RTI Act, the delegation alleged that it was a gross abuse of power and had to be strongly opposed and nipped in the bud.
The memorandum has alleged that Parrikar in conjunction with Advocate General Atmaram Nadkarni was working overtime to manipulate and weaken the RTI Act in the State.
Arguing that the Chief Minister was maneuvering the gradual phase-out of all government departments from coming under the Right to Information Act, the delegation informed Governor Wanchoo that the chief minister was planning to initiate this by first exempting the Directorate of Vigilance.
According to one of the activists, Governor Wanchoo’s attention was drawn to the fact that as the Leader of the Opposition Manohar Parrikar had regularly used the RTI Act to unearth information, and now being in power he was going all out in sabotaging the implementation of the Act in the State.
The Governor was also informed that by a circular issued on May 30th by the Director of Information to all Public Information Officers in every government department, it was stated that the Chief Minister had sought to know the names and addresses of every RTI applicant over the last one year along with the nature of the information sought by them.
The delegation accused the Chief Minister of trying to scare and target people who are seeking information under RTI.
