It seems governor of AP is the latest to join the bandwagon of government people crying about misuse of RTI. See news below:
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/governor-says-rti-used-blackmail-tool-655
Hyderabad, May 10: The Governor, Mr ESL Narasimhan, condemned the misuse of the Right to Information (RTI) Act by some people, who have “vested interests”.
He said the RTI Act has become a tool to “blackmail” the government and its machinery.
“I can say with complete authority that the RTI Act is used for blackmailing people. If that was not the case, why do the same group of people apply for the RTI Act so often,” he asked while speaking at the Administrative Staff College of India, after inaugurating the Forum for Good Governance.
Ok. The logic is that if some people file RTI so often, they must be using it for blackmail! Well, this argument — that if only a few people do something often, it must be a form of blackmail — is ridiculous. Such an argument could be used to label all those who protest against injustice, and freedom fighters before independence, as blackmailers!
Maybe the governor forgets that not so long back the 86 year old ex-governor of Andhra Pradesh had left his office amid scandalous revelations of sex rackets going on inside governor’s residence. Such was the secrecy after that event that the media was stopped by High court order to show any further footage etc of the episode. When government along with judiciary is hell-bent on stopping people from knowing what is going on within government, RTI is the only forum available for people to find out the truth behind government’s inner workings.
Citing his own experiences on the misuse of the Act, Mr Narasimhan said: “I receive RTI applications that seek information on the dinner I hosted for my guests. They ask me to disclose the guest-list, the menu and the expenditure incurred for the purpose.” He said is not spared even when he visits temples. “The other day, I went to a temple. A person filed an RTI seeking information about whether my visit to the temple was an official visit? If so, who did I meet and what was the discussion? I replied that it was not an official visit. I met the Almighty at the temple and had long deliberations with him. I also prayed to him to please give good sense to such people,” he remarked.
It is because people have very little faith about people in government regarding use of taxpayer funds at their disposal. Even an ex-minister Shashi Tharoor was found to be staying in 5-star hotels instead of finding a more reasonable accommodation given the austerity drive of government in place at the time. If government was more transparent of less cruel with public money, people will have no desire to waste their time in filing RTIs asking about dinners being hosted, or temples being visited by any government official. That trust has yet to be built by government representatives. Decrying use of RTI as blackmail is not going to do it!
All facilities are abused by vested interests.
Even the police are abused by some people filing false FIRs and making false cases. Did we ban police for that ?
Knife for cutting fruits is abused by some people to hurt others. Did we ban knives for that ?
The officer should reply truthfully that his temple visits are not official therefore outside the purview of RTI. That is a simple matter.
Really its natural those who are scared to come against it as its dangerous for their bad deeds. But I think you could have said about SM Krishna was found to be staying in 5-star hotel as Tharoor was found spending money from his pocket.