Should the Income tax examine the cases of persons asking for plethora of information?
8 Jul, 2013The Chief Minister of Goa Mr. Manohar Parrikar has said that the cases of those citizens who are found spending money disproportionate to their known sources of earning to procure information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, shall be referred to Income Tax department. Talking to a group of small scale industrialists he said "If anyone spends lakhs of rupees to source information under RTI in various departments without having the capacity to pay so much, then it is my responsibility to refer the matter to Income Tax."
The Goa government has recently issued a circular to all the government departments asking names of people who are filing applications under RTI Act. It was claimed that the names were sought to know whether foreigners were seeking information under the Act. The RTI activists had then alleged that the circular was to restrain the flow of information. His recent comment is being interpreted as a veiled threat to the RTI activists.
While most RTI applicants are using the act to gain information, there are a few who are negative in their thoughts with a design in mind who use it with malice.