Maharashtra government is all set to strangulate the RTI Act with its proposed procedure rules for filing second appeal before the Information Commission. Just for example, the rules ask the appellant to file an affidavit that the case relating to information sought for, has not been filed previously or pending with any court or authority

Vinita Deshmukh

When the draft rules for second appeal procedure to the Information Commission were framed and were doing the rounds early this January, Pune-based Right to Information (RTI) activist Vijay Kumbhar got a whiff of it and warned about the suspicious motives of the Maharashtra government to kill the RTI Act. In 2012, it had gone ahead with stealthily changing the rules to file a RTI application under Section 6. This time it is far worse and dangerous and hence RTI activists have decided to come out strongly against them, before the state government again clandestinely implements them.

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