Vijay Pinjarkar | Mar 24, 2016, 03.53 AM IST
Nagpur: City-based RTI activist has won over a three-year battle against Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) authorities for inclusion of date of birth in Aadhaar cards.
Aadhaar card is considered as the most valid address and identity proof for official works but initially UIDAI authorities failed to incorporate date of birth in these cards making it unacceptable to respective authorities.
City-based RTI activist Avinash Prabhune pointed out this flaw to UIDAI authorities in November 2012 by writing to Nandan Nilekani, chairman of UIDAI. But when he did not receive any reply, Prabhune filed an RTI application in January 2013.
By the time Prabhune was engaged in the RTI battle, over 20 crore Aadhaar cards were already issued by spending Rs2,000 crore. UIDAI did not even bother to reply to Prabhune, who pursued the matter for more than three years with the Central Information Commission (CIC), Delhi, which finally upheld his contention.
In its recent order, the CIC directed UIDAI authorities to pay compensation of Rs1,000 to Prabhune for mental harassment.
The CIC drew attention of UIDAI director general ABP Pandey towards this aspect so that a system is put in place to ensure that such lapses in responding to RTI applications, filed to the public authority, do not take place in future.
"This is a case involving a citizen, who made a suggestion out of good intention to the public authority in the interest of Aadhaar card holders in general and not because he had a personal grievance," the CIC said.
The CIC further added that applicant had to struggle to get a response out of the public authority regarding what view had been taken on his suggestion.
"When Prabhune filed RTI application, the action on part of the public authority was far from what is required under the RTI Act. The appellant had to make considerable effort and had to undergo mental harassment to get response from the public authority and it is difficult to quantify the detriment in monetary terms," the order states.
The CIC stated that Prabhune's case merits award of a token compensation of Rs1,000. He received cheque a few days ago.
"Though UIDAI started incorporating date of birth (DoB) in Aadhaar cards from September 2013 after the RTI plea, my battle continued against adopting a general system to incorporate DoB in the cards issued earlier," says Prabhune.
He adds government should take corrective measures for rectification of earlier shortcomings while giving statutory status to Aadhaar so that citizens can use these card in physical and electronic transactions.
The latest order issued by information commissioner with CIC makes it clear that system of maintaining records in the public authority, particularly practice of communicating on official matters through personal e-mail IDs, was highly unsatisfactory.
"We can only hope that public authority has now put in place a proper system of maintenance of records, including official communications exchanged by e-mail," it states.