Press Release on day 2 of Jan Sansad - 27 Nov 12

Peoples Assembly (Jan Sansad) at Jantar Mantar

Voices of People’s Movements in India’ Democracy

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Press Release

“Allow Parliament to function so that Parliamentarians and the nation can debate, deliberate, dissent and decide on the floor of the house” was the unanimous appeal of the 700 citizens, activists, academia and experts assembled at Jantar Mantar

Delhi, 27 November, 2012:  The five day Jan Sansad entered its day two at Jantar Mantar with over 700 people assembled here.

The day coincided with the ninth death anniversary of Satyendra Dubey, the former Project Director of the National Highway Authority of India who was brutally done to death on 27 November, 2003. “There can be no bigger travesty of justice than what has been done to my brother Satyendra Dubey, who laid his life for removing corruption and the irony is that till date no one has been brought to books and even in the face of all this violation we see a complete lack of political will to pass the Whistleblowers Protection Bill,” stated Dhananjay Dubey  

Responding to Dhananjay Dubey outcry, Prakash Javadekar, BJP assured everyone assembled that his party is “committed to the passing of the Whistleblowers Protection Bill in this session and setting up the Authority for it” as soon as possible       

All assembled maintaining a moment of silence for the 6 RTI activists killed over the last 3 years and two as recent as November 21st at Bengaluru and Mumbai. “Do we need anything more a compelling and powerful reason to demand for the immediate passage of a comprehensive Whistleblowers Protection Bill” asked Poonima Chikermane, social activist working with waste pickers in Pune.

With Maharashtra accounting for six of the 16 brutal killings, she added that as high as four of these killings happened in the prosperous region of Western Maharashtra and related to administrative corruption and siphoning of public funds in education, PDS etc.  

Sharing his experience Sanjay Sahni, 27 from Muzzafarpur, talked about the corruption in his village Ratnauli. And when he tried to expose the misuse of schemes like students scholarship scheme in his village and demanded social audit on MNREGA he was beaten up badly and subjected to repeated violence and brutality. “We have come to participate in the Jan Sansad with the hope that our voices get heard by the government and all the elected representatives” he added.  

However with both sessions of the House threatening to adjourn for the day and the session being declared as a washout, the question that was raised collectively was why the Parliament was not functioning when the People’s Assembly was fervently discussing and deliberating. Urging the Parliamentarians to be accountable to the people, Mr. Wajahat Habibullah the former CIC called upon the elected representatives “to immediately pass all important legislations"   

Assuring the people that the Left Parties were with the people assembled at the Jan Sansad he stated that “we will fight inside the parliament to ensure that session is not a washout and all people's bills including those for anticorruption and grievance redress are taken up and passed.”

Commenting on the lack of political will, Mr, Babu Mathew a legal expert opined that “the government do not want to pass legislations relating to marginal population or those that make them accountable to the people”.

To deal with the increasing pendency of RTI applications in the Information Commissions which is high as 28000 at the CIC level and 10000 in Rajasthan alone, a resolution was passed by all present demanding a time bound mechanism for appeals and complaints. Sharing her experience, Sanno an elderly woman from Malviya Nagar, who is physically challenged stated an RTI application filed by her to find out the status of her ration card has been pending with the CIC for the last 7 months.

There was a unanimous demand for the immediate passage of the Grievance Redress Bill, with nearly everyone present at the dharna voicing their complaint against at the very least one department of the government. Passing resolution that all Public Private Partnership must come under the purview of RTI, Ashok Kumar, an RTI activist of  Delhi pointed out “since all PPPs were defined as public project for public good with private investment, it is my right to demand that authorities like BSES was brought under public scrutiny.” Having being subjected to excessive Billing all efforts made by him to use RTI to find out how BSES records the electricity usage of consumer has been thwarted by BSES on the ground that they do not come under the purview of the Act

Welcoming the Government’s move to seek a review of the Supreme Court judgment of September 13, 2012, in the famous Namit Sharma case, Anjali Bhardwaj, NCPRI stated that “two-member benches will slow down the work of the Information Commissions and increase the already high levels of pendency, render the RTI Act ineffective and go as far as impede people’s right to information.”

Today’s Jan Sansad brought together voices of people, movements and their struggles to reclaim political equity and justice for citizens with activists demanding that Parliament function properly and take onus for ensuring the immediate passage of all important legislations pending before it  

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 For more information please contact Farah 9560511667 or Amrita 9810273984