NEW DELHI: In a stinging attack on the Government's decision to exclude names of persons who put down file notings from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Central Information Commissioner O.P. Kejariwal has written to the Prime Minister calling the decision the "last desperate attempt on the part of some vested interests within the Government to protect their identities from being exposed."

On December 1, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had instructed the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to exempt file notings on identifiable individuals, organisations, appointments, and matters relating to inquiries and departmental proceedings from the purview of the RTI Act. However, the Government had said that "substantive file notings" relating to plans, schemes, programmes and projects of the Government related to development and social issues could be disclosed.

In his letter, Mr. Kejariwal, one of the five Central Information Commissioners appointed under the Act, said that the first blow to the Act widely seen to be one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been enacted in independent India, came when the Government's Right to Information website (http://righttoinformation.gov.in) indicated that file notings are exempted from the information a citizen could seek from any government set-up. Pointing out that the Act had no such limiting factor, Mr. Kejariwal has written that there is no reason for a conscientious government servant to have any reservation about his name being disclosed for any note that he had put on file in the course of performing his duties. Asked about his letter, Mr. Kejariwal told The Hindu: "The RTI Act has no limiting factors as far as file notings are concerned. To do this [exclude file notings or to say that names of officials concerned are not disclosed] we need an amendment of the RTI Act and this needs to be done by Parliament."

Attributing the Government's decision to "forces within the Government, which are desperately working to render the Right to Information Act ineffective," Mr. Kejariwal, in his letter, wondered if these "forces" were trying to ensure that the newly constituted Central Information Commission is rendered ineffective.

Mr. Kejariwal has said that though it was a month-and-a-half since the Chief Central Information Commissioner was sworn in by the President, the Central Information Commission has a skeleton staff and does not even have the most basic facilities of an ordinary office.

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