BENGALURU: Extortion and blackmail is reportedly going on under the guise of RTI activism, and is a cause for concern among the powerful bureaucracy. Their concern that whenever the government makes a large allocation or grant for any big project, unscrupulous activists file innumerable RTI queries and study the project to find lapses or loopholes. They then make life miserable for officials by placing a demand for money, or threatening to expose them if they fail to comply.
The target departments are PWD, BBMP, RDPR, BDA, Water Resources, Minor Irrigation, Housing Board, Social Welfare and so on, which receive large sums of money from the government for welfare schemes. A senior retired bureaucrat told TNIE that many of these people pose as journalists, and are a menace. He said once they collect details through RTI, they post it on WhatsApp and seek to extract money and blackmail officials.
When it was recently raised in the legislature, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai told legislator Venkatrao Nadagouda in response to a question that where necessary, police cases may be filed by the aggrieved and action would be taken against the errant persons. Bommai was responding to a question on harassment of officials and contractors by RTI activists.
A bureaucrat said scores of victims have narrated tales of RTI activists calling them and demanding settlements which can run into large sums of money. One businessman’s family informed TNIE that they was livid after an RTI activist demanded a car to “settle” a particular issue, after he obtained some information through RTI and realised there was an official flaw.
“Some of them are like criminals, and if anyone tries to settle an issue by paying money, others pile on like leeches and make life miserable,’’ a retired bureaucrat said. An official source said that while the Supreme Court has said a person can file a certain number of RTI applications, some file hundreds of applications, often under benami names but the address is common.
Sources said about 300 cases have been filed in the Lokayukta in the past two years. It is no secret that cases drag on for 5-6 years. Lokayukta records reveal that hundreds of cases have been filed ever since RTI as a tool became available to activists.