Economic Times: New Delhi: Friday, June 01, 2018.
The Centre
has shelved new rules framed for streamlining the filing of right to
information applications, appeals and functioning of Information Commissions.
The rules had drawn sharp criticism from activists and the Central Information
Commission.
The
department of personnel and training has in a recent communication asked CIC if
there was the need for fresh rules. According to an insider, DoPT sought CIC’s
opinion whether the rules would help in improved functioning. DoPT’s letter
comes after draft rules were criticised by CIC during internal discussions. CIC
had sent objections to DoPT last December. CIC discussed the issue at its full
Commission meeting last week and would hold extensive discussions in June.
“The view in
the first meeting on this has generally been that the Act is functioning fine
without a fresh set of rules. The rules have been mired in controversies and
there are certain intrinsic flaws. So we should put them away,” the insider
said.
Information
Commissioners had criticised introduction of Rule 15 that gave more powers to
CICs to assign any RTI appeal to a commissioner in larger public interest. “An
appeal/complaint shall be posted before a single bench for hearing/ disposal,
unless the Chief Information Commissioner by a special or general order issued
in this behalf from time to time directs that the appeal/complaint or a
category of the same may be posted for hearing/ disposal by another bench or a
bench of two or more Information Commissioners either at the request of an
Information Commissioner, or suo motu if the same involves an intricate
question of law or larger public interest,” reads the rule. In its response to
DoPT, CIC pointed out that this could mean unnecessary government
interventions.
The move to
shelve fresh rules comes after criticism of government for “attempting to
scuttle RTI”. “In the final year of its term, the government does not want to
get any adverse publicity, especially on issues like transparency. The rules
have been at the centre of several controversies,” said another official. The
draft RTI rules have been under consideration for over a year. DoPT had put the
draft in the public domain in April 2017 seeking comments.
The exercise
came five years after RTI rules 2012 were notified. The most controversial
clause in the RTI rules has been that an appeal would abate after the death of
an applicant. RTI activists pointed out that this would mean an increase in
attacks on applicants. Earlier, a similar clause had been introduced by
Congressled UPA government in 2012, but it was withdrawn after protests from
activists. The draft rules have also introduced intricate formats for filing of
appeals, which activists and CIC had pointed could be avoided.
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