'Laws enforced on people without debate'

RTI activist and co-founder of Mazdoor Kissan Shakti Sanghatan Aruna Roy said that impunity in political system has resulted in democratic institutions losing their autonomous status.

She was delivering the Fr Claude D’Souza and Fr Ambrose Pinto Memorial Lecture at St Aloysius College in Mangaluru on Tuesday.

Roy highlighted that Freedom of Speech and RTI had legitimised the right to ask questions. But the amendment introduced by the current government to the RTI Act has put the right of people to question the government at stake.

“RTI Commission has lost its status which was equal to that of an Election Commission and the RTI Commissioner is not more than a government servant,” she said.

She lamented that these days laws are enforced upon people by the legislature without any debate.

Portal

Roy said that after decades old fight demanding social audit in the works carried out by government departments, the Government of Rajastan has now launched an
open portal to make the information on government transactions accessible to the public.

Calling upon people to question the moves of the government, she said if the people say that politics is not their business, they are hurting themselves.

St Aloysius Institutions Rector Fr Dionysius Vas and St Aloysius College Principal Fr Pravin Matris were present at the event. .