New Delhi, March 27 The Delhi government has raised concerns about "persistent and systematic violations" of the Right to Information Act, 2005, by its departments, and has directed each office to ensure compliance with the transparency norms mandated under the law, officials said.
A letter issued by the Administrative Reforms Department of the Delhi government on March 25 stated that it has received a representation regarding the failure of different departments to adhere to the transparency and accountability standards mandated under Section 4 of the RTI Act.
The letter has been sent to all the principal secretaries, secretaries, heads of departments, and heads of autonomous and local bodies, stating that since the matter concerns all the departments and offices, it is being issued to them for compliance.
Policy scholar Paras Tyagi from the Centre for Youth, Culture, Law and Environment (CYCLE), who submitted the representation, claimed that government departments have consistently failed to provide information under the RTI Act.
"Over the past two years, we have filed numerous public interest litigations (PILs) seeking information. Many times, we received conflicting information from different departments on the same subject," Tyagi said, adding that public information, including landline office phone numbers, has not been updated on the websites in many cases.
Section 4 of the RTI Act mandates proactive disclosure of information by public authorities to ensure transparency and reduce the need for individual applications.
The letter was issued by the public information officer, with copies marked to the complainant and officials in the chief secretary’s office.