Experts & Views
Infocracy's Fourth Monkey: Law students can use RTI Act to devastative effect
Who/What is the Fourth Monkey?
Infocracy India is an initiative to increase RTI activism among law students. LegallyIndia, a leading industry publication which is supporting Infocracy India covered it here.
And hey! What is the fourth monkey? Fourth monkey is the monkey of the 21st century. The poor animal can't help but see evil all around. The poor animal can't help but hear evil all around. And what does he/she do? He raises his voice against it.
For now, the Fourth Monkey is Infocracy India's blogger! He/she soon might be something else. But yes, the Fourth Monkey will always raise its voice against evil.
[Below all by the Fourth Monkey]
The laggard National Law Universities
It has been almost six years since the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005. While everybody from villagers to journalists to politicians to bloggers have been using the RTI Act to bust open scams and enforce their rights, the law schools seems to have missed out entirely on the RTI revolution.
Forget being a part of the RTI revolutions, several of the ‘elite’ national law universities do not even comply with the basic requirements of the RTI Act, in terms of having their websites displaying the required information under the RTI Act.
But then again, the national law universities have been at the forefront of the ‘institutional hypocrisy’, leaders of not practicing what they preach.
Law students and the RTI revolution
Well, it’s time to change this perception – it’s time for the law students to take their rightful place in the RTI revolution. While the potential of the RTI Act is unlimited, the challenge I believe lies in designing RTI campaigns, which not only expose scams and corrupt practices but also enrich the process of legal education.
Following are three illustrative examples of how the RTI Act can be harnessed for the purposes of enriching legal education:
(a) Getting an insight into environmental clearances: I don’t know about most of you but when I studied environmental law in one of the national law schools, it was an infinitely boring experience which focussed only on theory with almost no insight into the actual workings of the law on the ground.
There is however a remedy to this – the RTI Act. Let me elaborate.
We’ve all read reams and reams of the thousands of rules and regulations under the Environmental Protection Act but how much do we know of what exactly transpired in the Vedanta, Posco deals? Why is Jairam Ramesh being so erratic in granting and cancelling environmental clearance? Want the answers?
Just file a RTI with the Ministry of Environment asking for a photocopy of the relevant files pertaining to the clearances. Just imagine an entire government file on environmental clearances as a part of your reading material!
Of course it fattens your reading material but probably for the first time you will have an insight into the mysterious ways in which the Central Government works.
Also, you'll hold them the government to task; a fantastic opportunity which a democracy affords to its citizens. Democracy coupled with access to information results in infocracy and infocracy disrupts corruption.
(b) Getting funds for legal-aid societies: In an inspiring speech at NUJS earlier this year, which was covered by Legally India, Prof. Madhav Menon exhorted legal aid societies to audit both the National Legal Services Authority & the State Legal Service Authorities.
Apparently these authorities are supposed to be releasing funds for legal aid actions but are simply not doing so. With the right kind of information in their hands, through the RTI route, the legal aid societies can campaign for the release of more funds for legal aid societies.
(c) Minimum wages & Social Justice: Coming back to the hypocrisy of the National Law Schools. The most obvious burning issue is the lack of minimum wages for the housekeeping, hostel and security staff of these law schools.
For institutions which are constantly preaching their commitment to social justice, while of course teaching labour laws, it is unacceptable that they continue to blatantly flout the minimum requirements of social justice.
The only way to rectify the situation is to get out information through the RTI route and publish the same on the ‘Inforcracy India’ platform in a bid to shame these law schools to rectify the situation.
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Law students can use the RTI to a devastative effect; devastative for corruption, of course.
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If you are a law student interested in RTI activism and journalism please see this link. Infocracy India is recruiting students and you'll be given a stipend and a certificate by LegallyIndia.
Infocracy India's website is here.
The Facebook page is here. Social media and RTI activism should be interesting.
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As a student i always wanted to but didnt because it had to have someones name on it.
But why would you call yourself a monkey? Why would anyone call themselves a monkey?
However if we look for the real cause of the lethargic RTI Activism, the same requires to be seen from a different angle:
1. RTI is not part of curriculum of Law Schools.
2. RTI is not able to give jobs to the Law Students.
3. RTI Activists in Campuses face administrative fury than furry.
4. There is no initiative on the part of Civil Society Organizations working in the field of Right to Information to train Law Students on RTI: about the Act, tricks in using the same, filing of original RTI application, first appeal, second appeal, complaint with S/CIC etc.
5. There is further no mechanism to impart practical RTI training to fight corruption, what we need is examples, the motivating success stories.
However I may ask my center to help, when and where required.
Infact the present scenario is so rotten no matter what aspect of life you look at and the politicians making it all the more murkier with their parliamentary privileges very soon the society will need professional RTI activists like the lawyers and Doctors to address their grievances. You may have the information but do you have the time and the resources to take on the establishment?
Thus, "Infocracy" the 4th monkey is just, "a nuisance" for the corrupt' "an illusion" for those affected and "a source of earning" for the blackmailers and others who desire to be in the limelight.
You say: "You may have the information but do you have the time and the resources to take on the establishment"?
You the assumedthe answer to be "no" and based on that you go on to crticize Infocracy India!
What if I say the answer is "Yes". Yes we have the time and the resources.
We plan to have the resources of around 30 law school legal aid societies, say in the next 6 months.
30 law schools will have 2 teams each.
We'll also have 15 student researchers over and above the LAS network. They'll work for around 2 hours/week.
15 X 2 X 4= 120 hours/month.
Add to that 30 X 4 X 4= 480 hours/month.
Thus we work 600 hours per month. Enough to start the process of disruption of corruption?
-- Tanuj Kalia
""a source of earning" for the blackmailers" ??!! God! u hav explored the whole scope of RTI it seems.
Rome was never built overnight.It takes time.
RTI is my passion. It is magna carta of civil liberties. I think it to be the most important law empowering common man enacted in Indian legislative history, that's why I am very vocal on the issue.
I am not having your no. or mail otherwise I would have definitely called/written you to get to know the mechanism of building of Rome, but here I am giving mine and requesting to please call/write so that I may get better insights of the issue and improve my concepts.
9891491829/
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