By Akash Pandey :
Every government in India came into power on a plank of corruption. Corruption is a problem that affects all citizens directly. If we see when the elections are announced then every party starts giving promises that their party will make India corruption-free but never has any government taken this promise seriously so what can we do as citizens? Do we have any power? Do we make the government accountable? The answer is yes we can, but the question is how? In 2005 the government of India enacted the Right to Information Act which gives the right to citizens that they can demand information from any public authority of their workings.
HISTORY
In the Lok Sabha election of 1977 first time, political commitment to the right to information was given which was a result of the public resentment against the suppression of information, press censorship and abuse of authority during the internal emergency of 1975. The Morarji Desai led Janata Party government of 1977 in its election manifesto promised “an open government” and declared that it would not misuse the intelligence services and governmental authority for personal use to this commitment, Morarji Desai constituted 1977 a working group to confirm if the Official Secrets Act, 1923, could be modified to facilitate greater flow of information to the public. But the working group brought out with no change this recommendation shut the doors to transparency and openness. In 1986, the Supreme Court in the famous case of Mr. Kulwal v. Jaipur Municipal Corporation gave a clear cut directive that Freedom of Speech and Expression provided under Article 19 of the Constitution implies Right to Information as without information the freedom of speech and expression cannot be fully used by the citizens. In 1989, the National Front Government renewed its commitment to the right to information. It was an outcome of the people’s frustration over the earlier government’s reluctance to part with the information relating to Bofors and other deals. Reintegrating this commitment, the then Prime Minister V.P. Singh, in his first broadcast to the nation in December 1989 said, We will have to increase access to information. If the government functions in full public view, wrongdoings will be minimized. To this end, the Official Secrets Act will be amended and we will make the functioning more transparent. The right to information will be enshrined in our Constitution. Sadly, despite such strong commitment, there was no way towards transparency and openness in their governmental functioning due to the early fall of the National Front Government. In 1994, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)[ an organization for worker’s rights) started a grassroots campaign for Right to Information – demanding information concerning development works in rural Rajasthan. This movement grew and the campaign resulted in the government of Rajasthan enacting a law on Right to Information in 2000. In 1996, National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), one among several civil society groups, was founded to get legislation on RTI passed. In 1997, Tamilnadu became the first state in India to have passed a law on the Right to Information. In pursuance of the commitment of the National Democratic Alliance, the new coalition to implement its National Agenda on Governance, introduced the Freedom of Information Bill, 2000 in the Parliament. After having been pending for about two years the Bill was finally passed by the parliament on 4th December 2002 and it received the assent of the President of India in January 2003. Meanwhile, instead of waiting for central legislation, half a dozen states have enacted their laws on the catalog information (RTI Act). These include Goa (1997). Tamil Nadu (1997), Rajasthan (2000), Maharashtra (2000), Karnataka (2000) and Delhi (2001). In 2004, the UPA government appointed a National Advisory Council to monitor the implementation of government schemes and advise the government on policy and law. NAC recommended changes to the existing Freedom of Information Act, 2002. RTI bill 2004 was tabled in parliament as applicable only to the Union Government. The civil society protested against the bill as most of the information required by the common man was from state governments. After heavy lobbying by NCPRI (National Campaign for People’s Right to Information) and other organizations, the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act] was passed with 150 amendments. The right to information is a fundamental right under Article 19 (1) of the Indian Constitution. Thus, the government enacted the Right to Information act in 2005 which provides machinery for exercising this fundamental right.
Right to Information Act of 2005
On 15th June 2005 information act came into force the fact that the government is of the people of India. The first transparency law was made in Switzerland. The act is one of the most important acts which empowers ordinary citizens to question the government and its work. This has been widely used by citizens and media to uncover corruption, progress in government work, expenses-related information, etc. All constitutional authorities, agencies, owned and controlled, also those organizations which are substantially financed by the government come under the purview of the act. The act also mandates public authorities of the union government or state government, to respond to the citizens’ request for information. The act also imposes penalties if the authorities delay in responding to the citizen in the stipulated time.
Objectives of the RTI Act
1. Empower citizens to question the government.
2. The act promotes transparency and accountability in the working of the government.
3. The act also helps in containing corruption in the government and works for government people in a better way.
4. The act envisages building better-informed citizens who would keep necessary vigil about the functioning of the government machinery.
Important Provisions
· Section 2 (3) Information is regarded as any material in any form that can be accessed from a public authority.
· Under section 2(h) Public Authority means all authority and bodies under the union government, State government or local bodies. The Civil societies that are substantially funded directly or indirectly by the public funds also fall within the Ambit of RTI.
· Section 3 All citizens have the right to information.
· Section 4 is regarded as the Heart of the RTI, which states that every public authority shall maintain a record that is duly catalogued.
· Section 4 1 (B) states that the government has to maintain and proactively disclose information.
· Under section 5 (1) Within 100 days after the enactment of the Act, a Public Information Officer should be appointed to provide information to the person requesting the same.
· Under section 6 The procedure for acquiring information is stated, which states that a request should be made in writing or electronic form, the language can be Hindi or English and no reason is required to be given for the information which is asked.
· Section 7 prescribes a time frame to provide information by the Public Information Officer Disposal of request within 30 days.
· Section 8 (1) mention exemption against furnishing information under the RTI act which includes –
ü That information which is forbidden to be published by any Court,
ü Breach of the privilege of parliament of the state legislature
ü Trade secret,
ü Fiduciary relationship,
ü Information received from Foreign Government,
ü Information which impedes the process of investigation,
ü Decision of the cabinet and the reasons shall be made public only after the decision has been taken and the matter is over,
ü information which is related to personal information, the disclosure of which has no relationship to the public interest.
· Section 8 (2) provides for disclosure of information exempted under the Official Secret Act if the larger public interest is served.
· Section 19 Two Tier mechanism for appeal. The first appeal must be made within 30 days and if not satisfied must be made within 90 Days
· Section 20 provides penalties if a failure is to provide information on time to correct incomplete or misleading information.
Recent Amendments
- The RTI amendment Bill 2013 removes political parties from the ambit of the definition of public authorities and hence from the purview of the RTI Act.
- The draft provision 2017 which provides for closure of cases in case of death of an applicant can lead to more attacks on the lives of whistleblowers.
- The proposed RTI Amendment Act 2018 is aimed at giving the Centre the power to fix the tenures and salaries of state and central information commissioners, which are statutorily protected under the RTI Act. The move will dilute the autonomy and independence of CIC.
- The Act proposes to replace the fixed 5-year tenure with as much prescribed by the government.
Criticism of RTI Act
- One of the major set-back to the act is that poor record-keeping within the bureaucracy results in missing files.
- There is a lack of staffing to run the information commissions.
- The supplementary laws like the Whistle Blower’s Act are diluted, this reduces the effect of RTI law.
- Since the government does not proactively publish information in the public domain as envisaged in the act and this leads to an increase in the number of RTI applications.
- There have been reports of frivolous RTI applications and also the information obtained has been used to blackmail the government authorities.
Conclusion
- The Right to Information Act has not achieved its full objectives due to some impediments created due to systematic failures. It was made to achieve social justice, transparency and to make an accountable government.
- This law provides us with a priceless opportunity to redesign the processes of governance, particularly at the grassroots level where the citizens’ interface is maximum.
- It is well recognized that the right to information is necessary, but not sufficient, to improve governance. A lot more needs to be done to usher in accountability in governance, including protection of whistleblowers, decentralization of power, and fusion of authority with accountability at all levels.
- As observed by Delhi High Court, misuse of the RTI Act has to be appropriately dealt with; otherwise, the public would lose faith and confidence in this “sunshine Act”.