RTI Losing Lustre, Thanks to Official Apathy

Indian Express: Thiruvananthapuram: Saturday, 03 October 2015.

Right to Information (RTI) Act, the groundbreaking legislation which has virtually ushered in a revolution of sorts, is fast losing its sheen in the state as the Information Commissioners are taking a lenient approach towards the Public Information Officers (PIOs) who are to respond to the RTI queries. And the outcome? the flow of information which could have benefited the public is impeded, heavily. It is the political affiliation of the Commissioners that is marring the purity of the Act, alleges the RTI activists.

“The PIOs dispense with the information when they fear that they will be penalised by the Commission for not doing so. If that fear were not there, there would be no pressure to give out the information sought which will render the Act meaningless,” said RTI activist D B Binu, general secretary, RTI Kerala Federation.

He pointed out that the RTI Act clearly stated that the Information Commissioners should not have political affiliation. “But following Namith Sharma vs Union of India case, another interpretation was brought which says the Commissioners will have to shed their political affiliations, once they take the oath. But in reality, we cannot simply assume that they would do it. In many cases, they assume the position because of their political leanings. And hence, they will not be in a position to prevent the intervention of political parties,” Binu said.

Another aspect that works against the RTI Act is that majority of the information sought through RTI query pertains to information on corruption, according to RTI activist Rasheed Anappara. “I constantly came under attack for seeking a mine of information through RTI,” he said.

An official document accessed from the State  Information Commission revealed that 10,162 complaint petitions and 14,005 appeal petitions were filed from 2006-2014.“The  pending list clearly shows that the petitioner is not going to get his questions answered immediately. Which means the information that has to be given out in 30 days or 48 hours will take years to come into the public domain,” Binu said.

The document also showed that 8,109 complaint petitions and 8,498 appeal petitions had been disposed of. “They just close the case directing the PIOs to shell out information,” he said. In fact an RTI applicant approaches the commission after he fails to get the answers to his queries through normal procedure. First they file the complaint petition and if it fails to elicit a reply, they go in for the appeal petition. Chief Information Officer Sibi Mathews, though, could not be reached for his comment. A retired Information Commissioner known for his chutzpah,  who asked not to be named, said, “To implement it properly, Commissioners should have a sense of commitment. Besides, if Commissioners are giving the cold shoulder in implementing RTI Act, it’s the government which has to look into whether the RTI Act is being implemented,” he said.