Attempt to frustrate RTI Applicant with bogus replies

More recently, bureaucrats and sarkari babus have found a very unique way to hide their inactions and inefficacies in maintaining organized crime information. An RTI activist from Delhi had filed an RTI application to know the following,
1. Report of cases related to 498A with following details for each police station wise for each district of national capital territory of Delhi from 01-01-2007 to 31-12-2007.

a. FIR no /Other IPC sections included along with 498a
b. Case filed date
c. Brief summary of case
d. Complainant’s name, age, qualification, occupation,
e. Every accused names, age, qualification, residential address, occupation and sex.
f. Arrested (how many days in remand) or Anticipatory bail (session / high court)
g. Current status of the case. If trial completed then names of people got convicted and what is the conviction.
h. If a case if found false in trail or FIR stage, what action was taken against complainant, people/police who filed/helped in filing that case?

2. Statistics of 498A cases with following details in following format in zone/district wise
a. No of 498A cases filed in each zone/district, year wise from year 2005 to till date
b. Total no of 498a cases when daughter in law is alive
c. Total no of 498a cases after death of daughter in law
d. Total No of accused when daughter in law is alive
e. Total No of accused after death of daughter in law
f. Total No of people got arrested
g. Total No of people who got anticipatory bail
h. Total No of accused who are women
i. No of cases found false at FIR stage
j. No of cases found false at Trail stage
k. No of cases got convicted when daughter in law is alive
l. No of cases got convicted after death of daughter in law
m. No of people got convicted (MALE/FEMALE)
n. How many cases are filed under dowry prohibition act 3 for giving dowry

The gist of the reply that the applicant got was something like; The Ministry of Home Affairs divided the task into all the DCPs of the Delhi Region and asked them to reply separately. Each of the DCPs either presented the information in a much distorted form requiring time consuming data analysis and data collation, while others clearly stated that such information is not maintained by them per se and need to personally inspect the records for which the compensation has to be paid by the applicant to the tune of Rs. 24, 332 and Rs. 25, 224 as demanded by 2 of the DCPs which means a total of Rs. 49, 556.
This is atrocious for the following reasons:-
1) Police department is a public department, meant for public service, being funded by the tax payer’s money and RTI Act lays down guidelines for access to public information and has held the government officers accountable for the same to provide info as it is a citizen’s fundamental right. And demanding money for a task which falls within the ambit of police duty from a citizen is sheer insult and lack of recognition of a citizen’s basic rights
2) In light of the information asked, it is very clear that only the records which ought to be maintained by police are being sought for and failure of the police on part of non maintenance of such records only reflects the inefficacies of the police and the police is demanding money to cover its own follies which is nothing less than atrocious.
3) It is a well known fact that IPC 498A (Dowry harassment law) is widely misused to the tune of 98 % and the police is not only well aware of the situation, but is also hand –in – gloves to promote the misuse owing to its own corruption and with these replies, attempting to abstain from giving information and frustrating the applicant, only justifies the role of a corrupt police force in advocating this misuse.