Kanwal Speaks - July 26, 2015 at 12:17AM

Started my endeavour to make atleast some change in the issues related to the transparency and accountability in the departments related to the Directorate General of Income Tax (Investigation), to make them to shell out atleast some information under RTI Act, 2005, irrespective of the fact that it is an exempted organization added in Second Schedule of RTI Act by a notification of Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in 2008, where all enlisted organizations are exempted under the provisions of the Act, due to fact that information belonging to them is related to the Intelligence and / or Security, but with the two windows been left open in the sub section (1) of section 24 with: "Provided that the information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations shall not be excluded under this sub-section" Thus the following information is not excluded: • Information pertaining to the allegations of corruption • Information pertaining to the allegations of human rights violations It is, therefore, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions had asked even these exempted organizations to appoint CPIOs and FAA in its notification. However it has become a norm with these organizations in the second schedule that they summarily reject the RTI Applications filed with them without going into the contents just flashing their exemption status, the same is being done by the DGIT (Inv.) to the applications of seeking information from it under the Act. In the matter of DGIT (Inv.) particularly, there are various directions however been given by the CIC against the same norm as this department deals with the allegations of tax evasion and corruption, but it seems that it has not impacted the ground level working of the department, so now I am trying to follow the appeal route in the Act, first a presentation before the Appellate Authority in DGIT (Inv.) and allied departments and then to CIC to settle the law in the matter, and if needed through Courts.
by अहं सत्य

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