User:Cullen328/Sandbox/RTI2

I hereby formally ask RobertRosen to declare any and all conflicts of interest that he may have regarding this organization National RTI Forum, or any of its members. I also ask him to read assume good faith before doing things comparable to describing my edits as "bollocks" in his edit summaries, as he did in this matter.

I want to go though the material added by RobertRosen recently, and explain why I have removed it. Let me remind all editors that the result of a recent Articles for Deletion debate was to Keep this article. We must keep this article in full compliance with Wikipedia policy.

There is no point in emphasizing when the organization was formed. New organizations can be notable. I have removed those comments and the first reference.

The second reference is unacceptable for two reasons: It is an 2006 article from the Hindustan Times, however the organization was not founded until 2010, so this reference is irrelevant to this particular article. Also, the Hindustan Times article does not support the negative tone of RobertRosen's comments. The Hindustan Times article says that Amitabh Thakur was "manhandled" and describes his opponents as part of "the criminal-cop nexus". Thakur is portrayed as the victim, not the guilty party. I can't imagine how RobertRosen thinks that this Hindustan Times article can be used to justify this negative language. I have removed that language and the reference.

The third reference is the group's own website, which is used to reference the statement that it is a "2 person forum". This is false, because the website has a "new members" section listing six other people, and an "about" page which lists about 80 people across India as state representatives. I have removed this claim, unsupported by the reference given.

Now we come to the court case, and the only reference is a lengthy quotation from the judge's ruling. This is not an appropriate reference, because it is a primary source, defined as "accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event". A judge's ruling is a primary source because the judge is directly involved in adjudicating the court case. A secondary source would be a newspaper or magazine article, or a book about the case. written by a professional journalist or author.

Now we have statements such as "regularly use to institute frivolous legal proceedings" and "which they almost invariably lose". These are conclusions demonstrating a strongly negative point of view instead of the neutral point of view that is required in a Wikipedia article. A Wikipedia editor is not permitted to express such a point of view on their own, and if such POV is to be included in the article, it must be based on reliable, secondary, independent sources, which are lacking in this case, and it must also be balanced with other notable and contrasting points of view. Even if such reliable sources expressing this negative point of view were found, we must be careful not to give undue weight to such information.

We come now to reference five, which purports to be a YahooGroups posting by one of the leaders of National RTI Forum. Simply put, YahooGroups posts are not accepted as a reliable source on Wikipedia. It has no fact checking or reputation for accuracy. RobertRosen admitted to me on January 25 that he knew that material from YahooGroups was not a reliable source. Did he forget? It doesn't matter if the material is favorable or unfavorable to National RTI Forum - it doesn't belong as a Wikipedia reference, so I have removed it.

I conclude by appealing to RobertRosen and other editors to comply with the relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines necessary to ensure verifiability and the neutral point of view. I will be watching this and related articles. Thank you.

National RTI Forum  is an organization in India recently floated by an Indian Police Service officer suspended for absenting himself from duty and his wife as a vehicle to stall his dismissal from service on cross-charges of criminally assaulting an opposition legislator. This 2 person forum advocates government openness under the terms of the 2005 Right to Information Act which the forum's trustees. Recently the High Court imposed exemplary costs as "punishment" on the promoters of the forum for filing "frivolous and publicity seeking petitions" Text of the judgment "HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD,Court No. - 44, Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 2100 of 2011

Petitioner :- Institute For Research And Documentaton In Social Sciences Respondent :- Union Of India And Others Petitioner Counsel :- Ashok Pande Respondent Counsel :- C.S.C.,A.S.G.I.

Hon'ble Imtiyaz Murtaza,J. Hon'ble S.C. Agarwal,J. This petition has been received by transfer from Lucknow Bench of this Court and has been renumbered as Writ Petition (PIL) No2100 of 2011. The petitioner is Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) through Dr Nutan Thakur Secretary. The petitioner claims itself to be a non governmental organisations registered with Registrar of Societies, Chits funds and is engaged in a large number of social works and public activities. It is claimed in the petition that the petitioner is deeply hurt by action of the respondents aforesaid who it is alleged, have deliberately and intentionally throttled justice for very petty gains in two cases related with minor girls as regards rape and subsequent death of Ms Divya from Kanpur City on 27.9.2010 and possible gang rape of Ms Sheelu in Banda district on or before 12.12.2010.

The relief sought in this petition is also to investigate the conduct of various police officers including Sri Karamvir Singh Director General of Police and Sri Brij Lal Additional Director General of Police (Law and order and crime).

We have searched the entire petition and '''except the bald allegations, no supporting material to substantiate the allegations against the officers has been brought on record. The supplementary affidavit filed subsequently does not prove the allegations against the officer.'''

In view of the above, '''we are of the view that the petition is frivolous and is nothing but a feeble attempt to received publicity. The officers against whom allegations have been made are responsible officers and they cannot be said to be directly connected with the investigation of the matter.'''

As a result of above discussion, the petition is dismissed in limine. As observed above, the petition is frivolous, we are of the view that the petitioner be visited with some cost which we quantify at Rs.20000/-. The cost shall be deposited within a week with the Registrar General of this Court. In case of failure, the same shall be recovered as arrears of land revenue. It is also postulated that the amount so recovered shall be funnelled to the corpus of U.P Legal Aid Service for being utilised there.

List this petition after a month with compliance report.

Order Date :- 31.1.2011 MH " as also admitted by the wife in an email posted to many internet forums. The organization is based in Lucknow. Several RTI activists in India have been murdered. The group gives “RTI Gallantry Award”s named after murdered RTI activists Satish Shetty, Shashidhar Mishra and Lalit Mehta. In 2010 the awards were given for the first time to a slain RTI activist Amit Jethwa, a forest officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi and an environmentalist Biswajit Mohanty. The awards have no monetary value.