The Padma awards for this year may have been announced but the Union Home Ministry feels that the "process is yet not completed" as it refused to provide various details related to the awardees.
In a major deviation from the practice of the UPA government of providing information on selection process of Padma awards just after their announcement on the eve of Republic Day, the Ministry has rejected a plea on February 27 saying the "the process is yet not completed".
The response to withhold information was given on the RTI application filed by activist Subhash Agrawal who had sought to know details of the selection process of this year's awardees.
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Agrawal through his Right to Information application sought to know from the Home Ministry the names of awards committee members and names/number of endorsed persons which were later rejected by tax, intelligence or other bodies after their names were endorsed by the awards committee.
He also sought to know from the ministry the complete details on telephonic-confirmation sought from members of awards committee on any recommendation for Padma award, names endorsed by the committee but not included in final list, reasons on not including endorsed names in the final list.
Agrawal also asked several other details from the Ministry like whether any recommendations were made by the President, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister after the deadline to submit recommendations was over.
In its reply dated February 27, Central Public Information Officer said, "The process for Padma Awards 2015 has not yet been completed. Hence, no information can be provided at this stage."
"It seems that present Union government is bent upon preventing transparency in its working when now Union Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA) shockingly and surprisingly deviated from its earlier practice to provide information on selection process of Padma awards just after their announcement on the eve of Republic Day (25th January) every year," Agrawal claimed.
He suggested that instead of a slowly killing RTI Act, the Union government can save funds by repealing the Act rather than providing 'non-information' on RTI petitions like the one quoted above.
He also alleged that the PMO has lost its reputation for being one the best public authorities to respond to RTI petitions.
