After Maharashtra, Andhra’s under trials to get help through RTI
21 Apr, 2013The state information commission (SIC) of Andhra Pradesh is planning to direct the state government to put the list of those who are languishing in state’s prisons without trial for a long time in public domain. The chief information commissioner of Andhra Pradesh, Jannat Hussain has said that the commission will soon issue directives to the prisons for disclosing the information related to under trials under Right to Information (RTI) Act.
It is claimed that the move will help cases of thousands of under trials languishing in jails for quite long time to reach to conclusion through fast track courts and speedy judicial process. Earlier, Maharashtra state information commission had directed that state prisons to declare under section 4 (1) (b) of the RTI Act the list of under trials, who had completed 50% of the sentence they would get if convicted of their crime.
Instead of one Information Commission after another passing a similar order, should all the state governments not take this common stand? May be, the Central government should take this initiative.