Right to Information Act, 2005 is a powerful tool which helps various activists to held government and elected responsible for their work. Usually it was seen that since years many government schemes were floated for the welfare of the commoners however ended up filling the pockets of the then ministers and bureaucrats. There was no stream to question them however everybody knew the truth lying under these frauds. Either one had to be powerful or backed by someone who is in power to rescue the commoners from these frauds. Still it would be almost impossible as it’s a long channel of babu’s and bureaucratsthat one must follow to surface the truth. Right to Information Act, 2005 made this simple and provided the commoners with a tool to question any service rendered by the government. It just takes ten rupees to make a wrong into a right and what makes it efficient is the time bound service under this act which used to be the real blocker in all previous efforts made in this direction. For how fierce the law maybe, the related officials would take years and years to process them and when the result would come out, it would be have lost its effectiveness.

RTI Successful Cases:

Let’s consider some of the big frauds that were resolved through the power on Right to Information Act, 2005.

The Adarsh Housing Society Scam:

With help activists Simpreet Singh and Yogacharya, this scam was exposed. The Adarsh Housing society was originally planned to be a six storey building which was structured for the war widows of 1999 Kargil war and it was astounding to see that how this converted into a 31-storey building and how various ministers and army officials created a bee line to get these houses way below the market price. It also became evident that no environmental clearance was taken before building this high rise building in a Coastal Regulation Zone.  Some of the most prominent names which came forward during this scam were the then Union Minister Suresh Prabhu, Former Army Chief Deepak Kapoor, diplomat Devyani Khobragade and Congress Party Leader Kanhaiyalal Gidwani.

The very famous 2G Scam:

This was the one of the top examples of misuse of Power by Indian officials which involved none other than Telecom Ministry which was led by Andimuthu Raja. This scam caused a loss of nearly two million to Indian Government. The Right to Information Act, 2005 application against this scam was file by Subhash Chandra Agarwal. This is an ultimate example of how Right to Information Act, 2005 helps re-enforce transparency and fairness working of Government officials. Another Right to Information activist Vivek Garg received a document on his response to his application submitted under Right to Information Act, 2005 which revealed the 2G spectrum was auctions at way lower prices that it could have been.