Highlights of the Act in Maharashtra

 

 

One of the unique provisions of the Maharashtra's Act is that information will be available at every office - right up to the village level, explains former Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole, a member of the experts' committee. In other states having the law on right to information, an appeal against a decision of the Public Information Officer, is made to a higher officer in the same administrative machinery. In Maharashtra, the second appeal would go to an independent Lokayukta.

 

Maharashtra's Act allows much more transparency than that allowed even in the pending Freedom of Information Act of the central government. Bureaucrats and ministers better be careful while noting their comments on a file. Information on the decision-making process would be made available to people, once a decision in the matter is taken. This is of course subject to the clause on exemptions from disclosure, which anyway has been ruthlessly pruned and brought in conformity with international standards.

 

In order to counter a bureaucrat's in-built tendency to label everything as `confidential' push it under the carpet, a Commission of Records would be set up to tell the government what is confidential and what is not.

 

Coverage is extensive. Apart from government departments and semi-government organisations, citizens would be empowered to demand information from public trusts and cooperatives. This is absent in other states.

 

Penalty on officers for non-compliance of the provisions of the Act is stringent. A Public Information Officer will have to cough up Rs 250 for each day's delay in furnishing the information duly sought under the Act and pay a penalty of not exceeding Rs 2,000 if he is found in appeal as having given ``incorrect or misleading' or `wrong or incomplete' information. Penalty imposed ``shall be recoverable'' from his salary, ``or if no salary is drawn, as arrears of land revenue''.

This is a step ahead of the acts in Goa and Delhi. Goa Act provides for a penalty of Rs 100 per day's delay while the one in Delhi asks for Rs 50 per day ``subject to a maximum of Rs 500 per application.''

 

The stringency in the Maharashtra Act is further highlighted by the fact that a generous 30-working-day period is allowed in other state acts and that of the Government of India while it is 15 working days, barring in exceptional circumstances. Compare this with a 20 working period granted in the model act prescribed by the World Bank and the acts already prevailing in USA and UK. Of course, it is still a far cry from Norway, where the information has to be furnished ``on the same day or at least in the course of one to three working days'' and in Sweden, where their Act prescribes that " Public authorities must respond immediately to requests for open documents. ''