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RTI activist Nikhil Dey sentenced to 4 months in jail in 20-year-old case
June 14, 2017
Activist Nikhil Dey and four others have been sentenced to four months
in jail by a court in Rajasthan after being convicted of "trespass and
hurt" in a 20-year-old case, reports NDTV.
The sentence has been suspended pending an appeal by the five activists in a higher court.
The
case refers to a row in May 1998, when Dey, a Right To Information
activist, had gone to a village near Jaipur to investigate reports
of corruption in development projects.
The
village head or Sarpanch, Pyarelal, was accused of fudging payments for
toilets, homes and other government schemes and cheating actual
beneficiaries.
On May 6, Dey and four more activists went to the village to demand details from the Sarpanch in response to the allegations.
The
activists allege that when they went to Pyarelal's house to deliver an
official letter - finding his office closed - the sarpanch assaulted
them and then filed a case against them for trespass and hurt.
Dey and Norti Bai, an activist from the same village, reportedly went
73 times to the Panchayat office to get information from the Sarpanch.
The
activists did not file any FIR or police complaint, believing, in the
early years of the RTI Act, that a dialogue would resolve the dispute
more effectively.
The case was closed by the police in 1998,
after they inquired into the versions of both sides. It was revived
three years later by the Sarpanch, who filed a petition in court and
allegedly produced witnesses who were not present during the incident.
The verdict was announced yesterday.
"We are deeply disappointed by the verdict," said RTI activist Aruna Roy, calling it a clear case of miscarriage of justice.
"The
process of this case that has continued for almost two decades, and the
final decision is a body blow to the effort of citizens to fight
corruption and stand up for the rights of the citizen," she said.
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