Rajasthan RTI activist dies in police custody
IANS 07 October 2019
A Right to Information (RTI) activist has allegedly died in police custody in Rajasthan's Barmer after which the district's Superintendent of Police (SP) took disciplinary action against eight of the station's staffers.
 
SP Sharad Chowdhary said: "Three people including the RTI activist Jagdish Golia were brought to the Pachpadra police station on Sunday following a complaint received against them for indulging in a fight. All three of them were cousins and the fight broke out due to some land dispute."
 
While the activist's cousins were granted bail after being produced before a tehsildar, Golia's health deteriorated when he was to be produced before the former. 
 
He was immediately rushed to the Nahata Hospital where he was declared brought dead.
 
Further investigation is on in the case, Chowdhary added.
 
An FIR has been registered against the police staff which also includes a Station House Officer (SHO).
 
Golia's post-mortem will be conducted in the presence of the District Magistrate and the Judicial Magistrate.
 
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Comments
P M Ravindran
4 years ago
Sorry the earlier comment was wrongly posted here as something went wrong when the page was refreshed.
P M Ravindran
4 years ago
The following facts, about the ICs (both commissions and commissioners) are placed on record:
-The ICs haven't themselves complied with the mandate of Sec 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act.
- The ICs do not take up cases (complaints/2nd appeals) on FIFO basis. The Act provides for only information related to life and liberty to be provided on priority. Thus only complaints/appeals related to these can be allowed to be taken up on priority.
-They do not follow the mandate of the Sec 20 correctly. To elucidate, this section mandates that the PIO be given an opportunity to being heard before imposing the mandatory penalty. It implies that the need to impose the penalty should have been established (it is possible based on the records submitted with the appeal) before calling for hearing. It also implies that it is not merely calling for 'reports' or for a hearing but a actually a show cause notice for not imposing penalty with the option of submitting the reasons in a written form with or without personal hearing.
- The response to this show cause notice is the information that has to be communicated to the appellant for his information and counter arguments.
-The 2nd appeal is complete in itself, if the application, reply by the PIO, 1st appeal and the reply by the FAA are annexed to it. Hence it is easy for the IC to sift what all information sought had been provided and denied.
-It is only in the case of information denied or provided with delay, that the IC has to seek the explanation from the PIO seeking the valid reasons for denying/delaying them. It implies that the notice from the IC is specific about this information that had been denied/delayed.
-The mandate of Sec 20 is to penalise even for delay beyond 30 days and there is no choice with the IC. There are many cases when even after ordering the PIOs to provide information the ICs fail to impose the penalty which would by them be the maximum of Rs 25000/-.
-The ICs have been treacherously not following this procedure and even accepting illegal reasons like the information is not available (without giving any legally valid reason) or simply that the applicant has been provided an opportunity to check files and collect it from their office.
- The violations by the ICs are so blatant that they can be easily prosecuted under Sec 219 of the IPC.

But then our courts are not the ideal role models for dispensation of justice, are they? And so the charade goes on and on...
GLN Prasad
4 years ago
When the fight in between cousins is on land dispute, mentioning the occupation (?) RTI Activist, is not good journalism.
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