New Delhi: Leading RTI activists including Aruna Roy will boycott the opening of annual CIC convention, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the transparency law, to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The activists including Lokesh Batra, Venkatesh Nayak, Anjali Bhardwaj and Nikhil Dey, who were invited for the convention, announced their boycott plans after the authorities restricted the invitations to some activists citing security reasons.
In an unusual action, the Central Information Commission has expressed inability to invite a larger number of activists and even its own staff.
The activists have in the past been an integral part of the annual convention organised by the CIC, where the Prime Minister or the President attend the opening or valedictory session. In only one year, neither of the two top dignitaries were able to attend, following which Law Minister Veerappa Moily had addressed the gathering.
“We have resolved that the members of the NCPRI who have received invitations (and have not as yet been uninvited) will not attend the inaugural session.
“We will use the RTI to probe the sequence of events and will fight to establish the independence and pro-people democratic mandate of the CIC,” National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) said in a resolution passed today.
