The Tamil Nadu Government seems to be heading for a major confrontation with the state Chief Information Commissioner with the latter contemplating to invoke Section 18 (3) of the Right to Information Act against the Government for failing to provide information about land acquisitions pertaining to several approved SEZs to a petitioner.Section 18 (3) of the RTI Act allows the Commission to function as a civil court and issue summons and arrest warrants.A member of an activist group, ‘The Other Media,’ has accused the state Industries department (the Industries portfolio is held by the state Chief Minister) of failing to part with information regarding the status of SEZ applications in the state and for inspection of files including MOUs, and details of lands to be acquired for the 36 approved SEZ approvals, despite a formal request sent 11 months ago.But what has added spice to the spat are the observations of the Chief Information Commissioner, S Ramakrishnan, who has been pressed upon by the petitioner, Madhumita Dutta, to invoke Section 18 (3) of the RTI Act.“I am a little puzzled (by the Government’s refusal to provide information). We have never faced such a problem with this Government before,” CIC S Ramakrishnan told The Indian Express. As for invoking Section 18 (3), he admitted that it was a “possible process” available to the Commission to ensure information was provided to an applicant. Despite “repeated directions, nothing has happened” by way of the department heeding to the request of the petitioner, he said.The state Industries Department has, however, claimed that it has obtained a High Court stay on the Commission’s proceedings. “We have provided whatever information the petitioner (Madhumita Dutta) has requested under RTI. She says there was a delay, but we did not receive her original letter. Moreover, there is a provision under the RTI Act which prevents us from providing commercial information without the consent of the party concerned,” a department official said. Chief Information Commissioner Ramakrishnan denied he had received any court notice about a stay. The activist had on December 8, 2006, filed an application under RTI Act requesting information about the 36 approved SEZs, besides list of expression of interest from promoters for setting up SEZs in the state and asking in each case the terms, name of promoter, date of approval, location if available, nature of activity, land classification at identified site, government concessions/tax subsidies/economic incentives granted, pending or asked for and total investments.Accusing the Industries department of lying to the CIC that it never received the information requests “despite proof of delivery from the postal department,” she approached the Chief Information Commissioner. Also, her right to inspect the files was conceded only after the Commission gave the necessary directions, Dutta told reporters. “Finally, during inspection, I was harassed, interrogated, called a mercenary and finally allowed access to only four out of the 36 files. Even in those, several crucial pages pertaining to the MOU and project details were missing,” she said.Faced with “stonewalling” by the Industries Department’s Principal Information Officer, L T A Peter, the Commissioner during an October 4 hearing, observed: “The Commission comes to the inevitable conclusion that the PIO has totally abdicated its responsibility in this case.” He further added that there was “an organised resistance and reluctance on the part of the public authority to make information available as it pertains to the SEZs of Tamil Nadu being established on which there has been considerable amount of cross-tape opinion.”Meanwhile, two other Commissioners would be hearing the Industries department after complaints by the PIO that he was not given a fair hearing by Ramakrishnan.
