Headlines
PMO declines information on people meeting Modi
New Delhi, April 2
The Prime Minister's Office
has refused to reveal to an RTI applicant the information about people
who had sought an appointment to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
saying this would be prejudicial to the country's security and
integrity.
Rohit Kumar who had sought the information under the
Right to Information Act termed the answer "ridiculous", and said he
would appeal.
The chief public information officer (CPIO) in the
PMO in response to the RTI query by Rohit Kumar - a third-year student
of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in Odisha - cited concerns
for the sovereignty, integrity, security and the strategic interest to
hold back the information sought by him.
The prime minister meets
people both formally and informally in connection with the functioning
of the government and other issues and revealing this information may
have "prejudicial effect on the sovereignty and integrity of India, the
security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the state and
relations with foreign states, as well as confidential third party
information," the PMO said in its reply.
Declining the
information, it said, "...there may be instances of such meeting being
exempt from disclosure of information under Sections 8(1) and 11 of the
Right to Information Act."
"Sometimes, persons meeting even
request the very fact of the meeting having taken place be kept secret,"
it said in response to Rohit Kumar's query seeking details of
individuals whose request for appointment was granted and who had met
the prime minister and how many of those were from a business
background.
A disappointed Rohit Kumar said: "It is ridiculous.
How the sovereignty, security, unity and integrity of the country is
threatened by the disclosure of information about the people who had met
or meet the prime minister upon the grant of the request for the same?"
He told IANS in an email that he would file an appeal challenging the refusal of information.
"This
is indeed an unfortunate era going on for all the activists. All the
rights-based laws are being questioned like MGNREGA, RTI Act, Land
Acquisition Act etc."
"The PMO has become the biggest rejector of
RTI applications. So, this type of blatant opaqueness in the governance
process is a huge threat to the democratic structure of the nation," he
said.
He also noted that it was not just the PMO which was
declining requests for information sought under the RTI but all the
departments under the present government were likewise stonewalling
information.