In a country where rule of law hangs by a slender thread, where discretionary power have been given to the number of executives, where corruption is there in multiple folds from grass root to upper level, RTI act has resulted in the fundamental shift – empowering a citizens access to power & decision making. How the government conducts it’s activities have been placed in front of public in the form of RTI act, by virtue of which numerous scams have been unearthed in this country like 2G,Common wealth Games scam, Adarsh housing society scam etc. and therefore, this propeople act has been a threat to arbitrariness, privilege & corrupt governance .
Before enacting by the parliament, the draft bill of RTI was debated for 9 years, consulted with thousands of activists & experts & best thoughts were put together to frame it & subsequently passed in 2005. The RTI has been used brilliantly & persistently to ask a million questions across the spectrum – from the village ration shop, the RBI, the finance ministry ,on demonetisation, non performing assets, the Rafale fighter aircraft deal, unemployment figures etc. The information related to decision making from very powerful houses has in most cases eventually been accessed because of the independence & high status of Information commission. An independent information commissioner which is the highest authority on information along with the power to penalise errant officials has been a corner stone of India’s celebrated RTI legislation. And this is what the government is trying to amend by changing the architecture of the act that would virtually put government in control of issues like tenure & salary for not just the centre but state information commissioner
WHAT HAS CHANGED?
The government on Monday passed a bill seeking amendment to RTI act 2005 , three days after it was introduced. The bill was quickly debated & passed in a matter of few hours. The bill amends section 13 & Section 16 of RTI act, 2005 ( Please note this amendment act won’t apply to J&k RTI act 2009).Section 13 of original Act sets a term for the central Chief information commissioner & Information commissioner at 5years(or until the age of 65 which ever is earlier). The amendment proposes that the appointment will be “for such term as may b prescribed by the Central government “.Again section 13 states that salaries, allowances & other terms of service of “Chief information commissioner shall b same of that Chief election commission “ & those of information commissioner shall be same of that Election commission. The amendment proposes that salaries, allowances & other terms of service of CIC & IC “ shall b such as may be prescribed by central government “. Under section 16 ,the central government will also control through rules ,the terms & conditions of appointment of commissioners of state as well. So it is twin attack on accountability and idea of federalism.
DISCUSSION
Since RTI requires the extraction of information from the powerful offices .It therefore, requires the independence & authority of Information commission which was being protected in the original law by giving the security of tenure & fixed salary so that they would be able to take decisions even if against the government. And now by controlling their salaries & tenure is a way of converting them to caged parrots. The manner in which the amendment are being pushed through without any citizen consultation, bypassing examination by the standing committee demonstrates the desperation to pass the amendment without even proper scrunity. The mandatory pre-legeslative consultative policy of the government has been ignored. The RTI community is worried & feels that the spirit of the act is gone. The chairman of J&k RTI movement Dr Raja Muzaffar said, “ the fresh amendments in RTIact, 2005 are done arbitrarily which will disempower centre & state information commissions and seize their autonomous character. Though these amendments won’t apply to J&k RTI act 2009 but I hope J&k government won’t take any step to amend the state law as a follow up “
Instead of playing one institutional body against the other & diluting their powers, what is expected of the government is to focus on the real challenges faced by the institution such as pendency of applications, vacancies & qualitative decline in adjudication standards
(Sohail Khan & Syed Zahid are associated with J&k RTI movement)
