|
|
Universities have met to chalk out the course of the RTI Act implementation. A Telegraph picture
|
Universities are “in a fix” over the implementation of the Right to Information Act (RTI), 2005, especially in dealing with pleas for producing answer-scripts.
The vice-chancellors, principal information officers and other senior officials of all state universities met on Monday to try and find a solution to the problems.
The issues also cropped up at a meeting between the vice-chancellors and Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who is also chancellor of all state universities, on March 20. The governor had then asked the vice-chancellors to talk among themselves to find a way out of the impasse.
The meeting threw up several queries that were placed before state information commissioner Arun Bhattacharyya.
“We need to clarify whether the universities can be called public authorities under the RTI Act. We are seeking a legal opinion on the issue. We also need a manual for classifying documents,” said Suranjan Das, pro vice-chancellor (academic) of Calcutta University.
“The universities have their own rules in showing answer-scripts to students. These are creating confusions in the post-RTI era and we thought it best to chalk out a uniform system,” said Surabhi Banerjee, vice-chancellor, Netaji Subhas Open University (NSOU), where the talks were held.
The universities are also confused over how long they need to preserve answer-scripts and other documents.
“For example, NSOU preserves the scripts for six months and Calcutta University for a year. But the RTI Act does not impose any time-bar on filing applications for seeing the scripts,” pointed out Banerjee.
Kalyani University, too, preserves answer-scripts for six months, except those involved in legal cases.
Utpal Bhattacharya, registrar and principal information officer of the university, said: “Around 300 documents involved in litigations are being preserved since 2001.”
The vice-chancellors and the other senior officials will meet again to carry forward the talks.
|
