Sanatan Prabhat Exclusive : Corruption matters being suppressed in various Maharashtra Govt departments

• Total disregard for the Right to Information (RTI)

• Enquiry reports suppressed, fostering corruption

(By Pritam Nachankar, Mumbai)

Mumbai – It has come to light that in order to prevent corruption in Government departments from being exposed, officials in various Government departments across the State are trying to suppress information by ignoring the ‘Right to Information Act’. Committees have been formed in the legislature to investigate cases of corruption in Government operations; however, it has also been revealed that inquiry reports have not been disclosed to hide corruption matters. Currently, there are hundreds of pending cases in the State where inquiry reports have not been submitted despite the formation of inquiry committees.

Pritam Nachankar

To ensure transparency in Government operations, the Right to Information Act – Section 4 (1) mandates that all Government departments, corporations, establishments, etc., should voluntarily provide information about their operations on their websites. However, in practice, despite the enactment of the RTI Act in Maharashtra, many public authorities and corporations have not uploaded their information on their websites. All the annual reports of the State Information Commission are available on their website. In these reports, the Commission has repeatedly noted that ‘the Government should take the concerned matter seriously’, but no serious action has been taken by any of the ruling Governments in this regard.

Only committees have been set up but where are the reports ?

Subject	Inquiry Committee set up in	Report pending since
Issue of 64 education institutes in the State showing bogus names as students and grabbed Rs 1826 as scholarship	2019	5 years
Issue of a few medical officers from Orthopaedic Dept of Sassoon Hospital issuing fake ‘handicapped’ certificates	June 2022	2 years
Passing of Law against ‘cut practice’ in medical field	Committee set up to prepare the draft of the Act on 28thJuly 2017	8 years

Reports from committees formed to investigate such cases have been suppressed under the regimes of various ruling parties. Information about this, is available with daily ‘Sanatan Prabhat’.

Thousands of appeals received by the State Information Commission (SIC)

Month	Repeat appeals filed due to inadequate information in 1 st appeal
March	3,722
April	5,152
May	4,808
June	4,324
July	5,158
Total pending second appeals received before March and during March to July	82,981

Sanatan Prabhat Exclusive : Corruption within Maharashtra’s Government departments is being deliberately hidden

Right to Information is being ignored. Hundreds of inquiry reports are being suppressed, fueling corruption.

Information Commission recommends taking action against… pic.twitter.com/fg4IzVFRiU

— Sanatan Prabhat (@SanatanPrabhat) August 29, 2024

Editorial Perspectives

• This shows how deep-rooted is the corruption in our administration. Corruption and its concealment has become a modus operandi of Government agencies. It is a fact that even those who claim to eradicate corruption have not been able to end it. For this, we need a Hindu Rashtra.

• Don’t be surprised if those who suppress corruption today, put those who raise their voice against corruption in jail as punishment. If such a time is not to come, the society should be taught spiritual practice. It helps making one’s attitude sattvik in turn people are discourage from corruption.