RTI Act stamp: Aavin bows to pressure

CHENNAI: After stamping ‘RTI Act purposes only’ on more than 500 replies under the Right to Information Act over the years, the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Milk Producers’ Federation Ltd (Aavin) has finally bowed to the pressure exerted by a rights activist and ‘decided’ not do it anymore on any replies sent in future.The change in Aavin’s attitude while sending RTI replies came after a relentless fight with the organisation by R Natarajan, city-based RTI activist and a research scholar, who strongly objected to the stamping.About 15 months ago, Natarajan had sought information from Aavin on customer data and milk distribution in the city.When he received the information, he was perplexed to see stamping on every page saying ‘For Right to Information Act purpose only’. While going for further appeal on the Aavin’s customer data issue, Natarajan planned to move a separate plea with the organisation for the illogical usage of stamping as it amounts to suppressing the information and goes against the very spirit of introducing the Act — transparency and accountability in administration.Though the Aavin management feigned ignorance to Natarajan’s plea initially, after 12 months of his persistent follow-up, the agency has now “decided” not to do any such stamping on RTI replies.Natarajan told Express, “Though I used to tell the agency and its public information officer (PIO) time to time that its wrong usage as the Act is meant for infusing transparency and accountability in the administration, they never accepted it in the past. Ultimately, they are forced to see the truth and finally my stand on Aavin’s illogical usage of stamping is vindicated.” “I have been using the RTI tool to unearth information in many parts of the country and not a single PIO till now sent me any reply with such a stamping,” Natarajan added.According to Right to Information experts, there is no provision in the RTI Act to provide information with stamping.