RTI activist Anil Galgali, who was denied information on the expenses incurred on advertisements by the Delhi government and was instead told to personally visit Delhi and inspect the files, had written a letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asking for intervention. Instead of acting and issuing directions, the letter of Galgali was forwarded to the OSD of the Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodiya by the Rajeev Gupta, OSD of the Chief Minister. Furthermore the GK Madhav, OSD of the Deputy CM forwarded the letter to the Information and Broadcasting department, thereby shirking of the responsibility of taking action.
Replying to Galgali query on March 17, 2016, Directorate of Information and Publicity of Delhi Government MC Mourya said that applicant may be requested to inspect the information available on the records in the files of the FP (field Publicity) unit, so that the desired information can be provided on the payment of prescribed fee.
While Shabdarth department, a new department on April 4, 2016 replied that it issues the advertisements on the basis of order given by the Directorate of Information and Publicity Department and further said that information asked was not related with this department.
Finally, on April 13, 2016, Directorate of Information and Publicity Department’s Advertise Section Public Information Officer Nalin Chouhan replied to the Galgali query saying that desired information asked by the applicant was unavailable with the office, however, applicant can personally inspect the documents.
Terming these replies as a nefarious attempt to hide the splurged money of Aam Aadmi Galgali alleged, “The motive of this government is very much clear that it does not wish to share the common tax payers money spent of advertisement. Spending money upto certain limits with the periphery of NCR was justified to certain extent. But this government nonsensically splurged money across all the major cities of the country, that I wanted to know.’
