Status of prohibition revealed in Gujarat revealed under RTI
19 Sep, 2012Reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) seeking information on number of cases registered under prohibition in the state of Gujarat in past 20 years has thrown shocking figures.
The reply received from 21 police stations of Gujarat has shown that 1,18,702 cases have been registered against various people under the prohibition act. However, this may be just the tip of iceberg as the figure is the total received from 21 police stations only. SPs of Porbandar, Amreli and Junagadh have denied the information claiming that providing the data would cause disproportionate diversion of resources of the public authority while Aamod has informed that no case of prohibition has been registered till now. Complete information from Ahmedabad, Rajkot Surat, Kutch, Junagadh, Amreli Surendranagar, etc. is yet to be received.
The RTI application was first sent to the Chief Minister’s Office, which was transferred to home department, which then redirected it to the office of the Director General of Police and was transferred to the district superintendent of police (SPs).
The data raises the question whether such data should be maintained in a consolidated manner and also whether such application should be repeatedly transferred.